


I miss it when your heart's not around (please slow down)

by sdwolfpup



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Brief suicidal thoughts, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, First Time, Idiots in Love, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, minor 10k/Red, minor Sketchy McClain/Skeezy, weird about each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-06 17:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 58,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18393236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: After the Newmerica election, Warren has to learn how to be dead, Murphy has to learn how to be human, and the talkers and humans have to learn how to live together when the unresolved fears Estes and Pandora let loose come to a head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to Vimesbootstheory for reviewing this to make sure all my writing and re-writing didn't totally mess up the individual emotional plots. Any remaining inconsistencies and mistakes are mine. Title from Butterfly Boucher's "I Found Out."

The post-election celebration lasted longer than Warren's stomach for it. She stayed for a bit, shook the right hands and said the right things. She watched George beaming as the room swirled around its soon-to-be official leader. She watched Addy, Red, and 10k drinking and laughing like they were all actually college kids without the injuries and loss of the past ten years. In a corner she found Doc with Citizen Z and his family, little JZ staring raptly at the older man as he told a long, involved story about who knew what. They all had so much behind them and so much still to go, but today was for rejoicing. 

Warren wasn't feeling much of anything, though. Just the hard rock in her stomach that had dropped when she'd seen Cooper again and which had only grown heavier with his news. 

She was dead. 

Not just recently dead like a Talker, either. But honest-to-god dead for a long enough time that she couldn't believe she hadn't known. How could a person go walking around for months and months and not know? But then Murphy had done the same for years, and it was his blood that had her here at all. 

Murphy still hadn't come back from wherever he'd disappeared and she was starting to get worried. It wasn't like him to miss a party, especially one where he'd played a heroic part and would be looking for accolades. Warren slipped outside without alerting the others, figuring she'd at least get some time to herself while she looked. 

Altura was mostly empty at the moment. The afternoon sun was hanging low and round in the sky, highlighting the guards in their usual spots; it got lower and dimmer every day as winter marched nearer. It was gonna be a cold one here in Newmerica. Warren wasn't ready for that, but at least it would keep the zombies at bay. Would it affect the Talkers the same way? Herself? She felt uncomfortable in her own body, hated that she wasn't sure anymore of what it could and couldn't do. 

The grounds were quiet in the warm air of late summer, missing the usual ebb and flow of free-roaming Altura citizens. They were all mostly at the party still, though Warren saw a small group of men a short distance away, whispering harshly and staring with hard eyes at the building where the sound of music and laughter dimly escaped. Warren noted their faces, noted the way they shifted those angry glares to her. She met those stares until the men looked away first and the group wandered off. 

There would be trouble in the coming days and weeks. Some of the anti-Talker contingent had shifted back after Estes' plan was revealed, but many had eagerly joined his side in the first place and would be difficult to convince otherwise. Warren made a mental note to bring it up with George later and then continued her search. 

She found Murphy not much farther away, sitting on a grassy hill with the cooler with Sun Mei's brain at his feet. 

“Hey,” she said, walking up behind him. 

He jumped and slammed the cooler shut. “Jesus, Warren.”

“Take a breath, Jumpy. I wasn't trying to scare you.”

“What are you doing here? You're missing a good party from the sound of it. Not as good as if they'd had it at Limbo, but good enough.”

Warren sat next to him on the soft and springy grass. “I came to ask you the same thing.”

“Just enjoying the view. Blue sky, sunny afternoon, malcontents plotting my demise.” He gestured with his chin at the group from earlier which had reconvened further from the building and were now shooting surreptitious looks at her and Murphy. 

“They could be looking at me instead,” she said. “I'm not exactly a standard issue human anymore.” She paused and then added, “Cooper said you led him to me, after I was shot. So you must know.”

“That you're dead? Yeah.” 

“Have you known this whole time?”

“Don't you think I would have said something?”

“I guess so.” Warren plucked at the grass. “Did you send Cooper away again?”

Murphy looked at her blandly. “I'm not in the business of running off boyfriends, Warren. If cowboy left, that's all on him, not me.” 

Cooper had left without anyone even pushing him away, then. Warren had hoped...she didn't know for what. She was so tired of having to be the one to fight, had told Cooper as much. Apparently he hadn't wanted to take the fight on himself, either. Warren sighed, nudged the cooler with her foot. “Take care of her.”

“Should I buy her dinner?”

“ _Murphy_.” 

He held up his hands. “Just trying to lighten the mood. I won't let anything happen to her brain, I promise.” 

“Can I...see it?”

“Why? She's not there. You'd be better off saying whatever you need to at the memorial wall.”

“It's still a part of her though. I was the one who cut her open and took it, but it all happened so fast and Estes was coming for us. I just need to see it.”

Murphy rubbed his fingers along the nylon top of the cooler. “It's a bad idea. You just got huge news about yourself, you were shot a bunch of times – with no blood, which is something even I haven't accomplished. You must be indestructible now.”

It sounded great and awful at once, like even if she'd wanted to die she couldn't. She wondered if Estes hadn't run out of bullets, would the last one to her head have done the deed? “Am I a blend?”

“I don't think so. They're immune to zombies, but they can be killed, as you know. Although I don't think you found Limbo on accident that first time. Just like I could feel you when you were with Cooper.”

“Shit now I'm dead **and** I've got you in my head? Am I gonna start wanting to please the Big Red One?”

“That wouldn't be so bad, would it?” Warren softly punched his shoulder. “No, you're something else. Something special.” His tone was warm when he said it, not mocking. “Apparently Mr. Fancy Hat couldn't see that.”

Warren peered at him. “Alvin Bernard Murphy, are you jealous?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Just pointing out facts. You need better taste in men.”

“The apocalypse isn't exactly ripe with choices.”

“You don't have to settle,” he muttered. 

“Easy for you to say, you have your little blend lovebirds.”

“Who's jealous now?” Murphy said, standing. “I should get this back to Limbo. Start figuring out what Sun Mei knew.”

“Are you going to have to eat her?” His silence was answer enough. “Be respectful. Please.”

Murphy leaned down to pat her shoulder. “I promise.” He straightened and she heard him make an unhappy noise. When she looked up and saw Doc, Addy, 10k, and Red marching towards them, she made a sound that mimicked his. Murphy raised a curious eyebrow. 

“I'm not really in the mood for company,” Warren said with a shrug. 

“And yet here you are,” Murphy murmured. The others were on them before she could respond. 

“I didn't want to do this back at the celebration,” Red said, and without warning hauled back and punched Murphy in the face. 

Murphy stumbled backward as Doc shouted and 10k grabbed Red's shoulder. 

“What the hell was that for?” Murphy yelped. 

“For what you did to Tommy,” Red hissed, jerking free of 10k's grip and punching Murphy again, snapping his head back. 

“Hey, hey,” Warren said, moving between them, guarding Murphy. “That's enough.” 

“And that's for never even having the decency to apologize!” Red shouted past Warren, 10k holding both of her upper arms now. The young woman twisted free and Warren tensed to stop her, but Red just clasped her arms at the elbows and glared. 

“What is she talking about?” Addy asked 10k, who shrugged. 

“It was a long time ago. Doesn't matter.”

“Doesn't matter?” Red demanded. “He tortured you and just acts like it's all roses and sunshine now!”

Warren looked back at Murphy, who had blood dripping from his nose. “Tortured?”

He looked away and Warren spun, grabbing his chin in her hand, forcing him to look at her. “Yes, ok, fine,” he said, “I treated 10k badly when he was at Murphytown. But I also took care of him! I protected him from you, or did you forget your little punching session?”

Warren felt a wave of shame roll through her. She couldn't even blame that on being dead. She'd been perfectly human then, driven to the brink by her mission. 

“Don't try to make this about Warren,” Red said. “10k told me about all of it and what you did...” Her eyes were bright with anger. “He's a better man than you and has been gracious enough to ignore it. But I won't.”

“A better man?” Murphy scoffed. “Did I miss his apology to me?”

“To you?” 10k shifted and Warren tensed. She didn't want the younger man to decide to end this with a knife. “I don't owe you anything.” 

“You killed Cassandra.”

“She wasn't your pet.” 

“You killed her because you hated me. You imagined it was me you were killing. You did it to hurt me and we both know it.”

10k was silent. 

“Is that true?” Doc asked, his voice tight with pain. 

10k turned on his heel and strode away, Red at his back. Murphy had the common sense to look contrite when Doc turned that aching sadness his way. “Murphy?”

“Yes, I was an asshole and did terrible things to the kid. I'm sorry! We got shot and went to Zona for two years and I thought it was better to just forget it happened. So much time had passed when everybody reunited, it seemed pointless to talk about it. I never expected him to forgive me but I thought we could at least forget it.”

“Damn it, Murphy,” Doc said, choking back tears. “God damn it.” 

“Listen, take a shot at me if it helps. I deserve it.”

Addy stepped forward and walloped him hard enough it sent Murphy to his knees. Then she turned and left without a word, beelining for where 10k and Red had disappeared to. 

Doc came forward, too, but he just spit on the ground by Murphy's hands and left silently. 

Murphy tried to get his feet under him. “What about you?” he asked Warren, his voice shaky. 

“I'm not gonna hit you,” she sighed. She helped pull him up and looked him over, his red skin already turning purple along the high curve of his cheek from Red's first punch. And he'd have a hell of a shiner from Addy's. “As soon as I got my hands on 10k I injected him with a vaccine that could have killed him. I haven't earned any retribution on his behalf. I think I was just hoping we'd all forget, too.” There was so much she wished she could forget. 

“I guess our punishment is having to live with it. If I'd known he still thought about it...” Warren saw real regret in Murphy's eyes. He shook his head sharply. “I need to get Sun Mei back to Limbo. Give everybody a few days without me around,” he continued. Warren envied him having a place to hide. 

“Don't leave it too long,” she warned. 

“I won't. I'll make it up to Doc somehow.” 

“And 10k? Addy?”

“There's no magic fix there. They're both gonna hate me as long as they need to.” He picked up the cooler and saluted her, hesitated in a half-turn away from her. “Do you...is there anything I need to do for you?”

She smiled faintly. “Just try not to be such an ass all the time.” 

His shoulders, drawn up as he asked her, relaxed again. “I'll try. But a leopard can't change all of his spots; then he wouldn't be a leopard anymore.” He sauntered off, the cooler sheltered carefully in his arms.

**********

Still uneasy in her own dead skin, Warren avoided George and the others for the rest of the evening and into the next morning when George, bleary-eyed and obviously hungover, stumbled into the common area.

“Morning sunshine,” Warren said, handing her coffee. Coffee was a rare treat, but the Altura chefs had broken it out after the party. George grumbled something, squinting at the mug before taking a small sip. “There's food, too,” Warren said, handing her a plate with bread and eggs. George grumbled again and set to eating. 

Finally she regained enough clear-headedness to ask, “Where'd you disappear to last night? You missed a hell of a party.” 

“Just enjoying some quiet time while I can.”

George sighed. “We worked so hard for the vote, lost so much, and yet this is only the beginning. Do you think we'll ever get there?” 

“To a united Newmerica?”

“To a time we can rest.” 

Warren stared down at the table, its fake wood stained with coffee rings and scratches. She wondered how many college kids had worried about meaningless grades here before the zompocalypse. “Someday,” she said, not believing it. It was enough for George, though, who smiled gratefully and shoveled down her breakfast. 

“The next step is to identify representatives from each outpost in Newmerica,” she said between bites. “Bring them here together for a final constitutional convention. We'll call it something else, though. We don't want to just copy what was done before – we want to make something better. Something that works for all people and Talkers right off the mark.” 

“Aren't Talkers people?” Warren asked quietly. 

George frowned. “Of course they are. That's what the vote was about.” 

“The vote was to bring humans and Talkers together, not to treat Talkers like people.” 

George's frown deepened. “Warren, you know I don't think of you any differently. Maybe even more like Superwoman, but that's it.” 

“I wasn't talking about me.” Though Superman was still an alien and not a human. “There are still people who don't think Talkers are any sort of human at all. They're quiet now, but they're mad. We have to be ready for that.” 

People were happy this morning in the cafeteria and common area – the ones not miserably hungover at least. They chatted and laughed, and many waved at George, humans and Talkers alike. Here in this microcosm, it would be easy to believe there was nothing left to worry about except the details of a new government. Warren could see the doubts lingering in George's eyes. But George said, “we'll keep an eye on it” and Warren let it go. The young woman's head was still filled with dreams and excitement. No point bursting her bubble so soon. 

George finished her breakfast and a moment later was whisked away to meetings. “You have a standing invite to any of these” she told Warren, but Warren just nodded and stayed where she was. George could handle this part just fine without her. Besides, Doc had come in and was looking uncharacteristically lost and sad. He noticed Warren and she waved him over. 

“Morning, Doc.” 

“Hey Chief,” he said dimly. 

“How you doing?”

“Mad. Confused. Betrayed. Maybe a little sick? But I could just be hungover and hungry.” 

“Is it the Murphy thing or the 10k thing?”

“Murphy, mostly. I talked to 10k about Cassandra a little more. He swears she was trying to kill him first, and you remember what she was like then. I have to believe him.” She did, too, though she'd wondered what would have happened if she'd been there when it all went down. “But Murphy. How could he do that to the kid? How could he think it was okay to just pretend it didn't happen? Why didn't 10k tell _me_ about it? I thought I knew them both so well. 10K's like a- a son to me. And Murphy, that jackass, is my best friend. Or he was. I thought 10k just hated Murphy on principle. And because of the Cassandra stuff. And Murphy biting him.”

“All good reasons,” Warren agreed. 

“Then to find out there's more...I don't know if I can ever forgive that red son of a bitch.” 

“You don't have to. That decision is one you make for yourself, not for Murphy or even 10k. You don't owe your forgiveness to anyone, just to you if that's what would make you happiest. Or you never have to see Murphy again if you don't want to. Newmerica's a big place.” 

“I don't know. I think I want to, but he's gotta earn it somehow and 10k has to be okay with it.” 

Warren patted Doc's cheek. His beard was soft, clean, and trimmed. He looked like a man who only had non-apocalypse problems. “Then do what you gotta do, Doc.” 

“This pushed Addy over the edge. I thought they'd finally be friends after the Talkers and Lucy, but she's pissed.” 

“She won't hate you for being his friend again.” 

“I hope not.” 

“Don't force her and she won't force you either. It's Addy. You know her.” 

“I did know her. Now?” He shrugged. “The more you're around her, the more you'll see she's changed a lot since we saw her last.”

“Haven't we all.” 

“God damn apocalypse.” 

“Amen, brother.” Warren raised her coffee mug and clinked it against Doc's. They sat at the table in peaceful silence for a few minutes, while more and more of Altura's citizens started waking up to the day. Warren caught excited discussions about next steps for Newmerica, someone complaining that the line to see the medics was extra long that morning, and a little kid pouting about not being able to go back home to Pacifica yet. It all seemed so normal. And Warren could have been any one of them, except for the fact that her heart was beating in a body already dead. 

The knot in her stomach wound tighter and she slammed her mug down with a crack that made Doc jump. She couldn't breathe in here suddenly, couldn't stand the inane gossip and worries floating around them. 

“Everything okay?” Doc asked. 

“Just need to, uh, go talk to...someone. About...some...stuff and, um, things.”

Doc shook his head. “You gotta work on your exits, Chief.” 

Warren kissed his cheek. “Hang in there, Doc.”

“You, too. See you later?”

“Yeah, I'll be back for dinner.” 

“You better, young lady. Six PM curfew!” he called out as she walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

Murphy was not a scientist in any sense of the word. He'd been terrible at the subject in school, though to be fair he'd been terrible at everything in school. It was hard to focus on studies when you were sick all the time and either missing too many classes or getting made fun of when you were there. But he'd done just fine with Merch's knowledge when she'd died, and he would do just fine with Sun Mei and the cure, thank you very much. Hadn't Sun Mei specifically told Red to give it to him? 

Red. He supposed he didn't blame her for punching him, although Murphy didn't totally understand how 10k earned that kind of devotion. Hadn't that other girl, Sarge, basically blown herself up to save him, too? That was the story at least. He liked the kid well enough but come on. 

Murphy had sequestered himself and Sun Mei's brain in his room at Limbo once he'd gotten back from Altura, ignoring Wesson's worried hands fluttering over his wounds, and instead given the blends strict instructions he was not to be disturbed. He wasn't pouting really, he was keeping to himself. And if he spent that evening moodily remembering the look on Doc's face and the sheer rage beaming out of Addy, who could blame him? He was pretty sure he could fix things with Doc, but Addy hurt, and not just her right hook. She was the last link he had to Lucy. 

At least Warren didn't hate him, too. That would have been unbearable. 

They hadn't seen much of each other since they'd arrived at Altura after the journey from Cooper's farmhouse, and it was strange to know she was out there doing things without him at her side. He would have gone back to Altura to find her again if she hadn't shown up on his own doorstep first, but somehow he knew they'd keep being drawn together anyway, like two stars caught in each other's gravity. 

See? He'd paid attention in school sometimes. 

Murphy turned over in bed and thought about Warren. She was dead now, just like him. After his run-in with Cooper in Altura, Murphy had run after her, had finally slowed down enough to follow his inner Warren beacon and opened the correct lab door just as shots rang out and Warren collapsed to the ground. The terror that had swarmed over him in the silence of her fall had been like a living thing, and he'd fought off its sharp teeth long enough to take the stairs three at a time to her side. George, gripping a wild-eyed Estes tight, babbled an explanation that Murphy ignored and he'd lifted Warren up, carried her just as quickly back out into the light, until they'd found a place to lie her down and realize she was somehow just fine. Six bullets and only the holes in her shirt and some drops of blood to show for it. 

So she was dead, and the wannabe cowboy had talked to her, left, and she hadn't left with him. The only person Warren had gone looking for was Murphy himself. She'd said she loved him, at the bakery. He wasn’t sure what that meant to her, but to him it has been an electric jolt to the heart, one that space and time had made no less exhilarating or confusing. Some distance between them was safest for now, even while he tried to find any plausible reason to be close to her again.

It was so much easier with the blends. He was so connected to them, knew what they wanted, how they felt. He could send them away with a thought; they hung on his every command. _Like mind-controlled zombies_ , what he thought of as his Warren voice prodded him. 

It wasn't entirely wrong. And the fact of it made the whole blend relationship a little boring if he was being honest. 

He cared about the blends, had a good time with them, but when it came down to it, it wasn't them he wanted to turn to when he had something to talk about. He hadn't crossed the country on his own to find them when they were lost. He didn't miss seeing their smiles. 

It was a real fucking problem, frankly. 

It wasn't even his only problem. Murphy stared at the cooler, considering. His first thought after realizing Sun Mei had truly discovered the cure, had been sheer, sweet relief, even joy. But his second thought had been how much he could set himself up for the rest of his unlife because he would entirely control production. Without him, they had nothing. Unless Warren also had his brain-eating abilities to go with the deadness. If that were true, there was no way they'd pick him over her, and without that would they even keep him around at all? 

So now he had choices to make, none of them good. But he didn't have to make them immediately. He could leave it for a week or two, figure out all the angles, make sure no matter which way the chips fell, they'd mostly roll his way. Make sure humanity got its cure and he got his just reward. Make sure that he didn't give his friends any more reason to hate him. Make sure that when the time came, he could look at himself in the mirror and feel proud, not guilty.


	3. Chapter 3

It took five days after the election, five days of trying to pretend she was alive while the new citizens of Newmerica had parties and speeches and the start of a million small and petty details to put a country together, before Warren had to escape. 

Representatives were filtering in, some eagerly, some reluctantly, some – like Hackerville – not at all. There had been two fistfights just over which group should sleep where, and someone had clogged up a toilet with someone else's face because they hadn't “respected Caveville” enough. 

Warren couldn't take another damn minute of any of it, had finally just stood up and walked out of the room as the representative from Pacifica went on about the state of the library and the cost of expanding the memory tree to all of Newmerica's citizens. Warren wondered if she'd be listed as dead on that tree, or they'd give her her own special color. Maybe they'd make her and Murphy red leaves, fitting for him and ironic for her. She didn't realize bodies could still be warm with no blood, still make tears and eat and laugh. It was fucked up. _She_ was fucked up. None of the humans would understand. None of the Talkers would either, so focused on keeping up their lithium and bizkit intake, not wanting to misstep when Newmerica was still shiny and hesitantly welcoming. They were all afraid, but for Warren there was nothing to be afraid of. She would never turn. 

Restless, lost, Warren checked out a dirt bike from Altura's collection and sped as fast as it would take her away from the forced normalcy. The engine whined and shuddered as she pushed it faster and faster, wind whipping so hard through her hair she had to grit her teeth. Superman didn't need a helmet and neither did she. Would her body just go on walking around if her brain was destroyed? Wouldn't it be a relief to find out? 

But the roads were clear and she arrived at Limbo in a cloud of dust, her brain intact. She hadn't been purposefully aiming for here, yet was unsurprised to arrive. Warren banged on the door and when the voice behind it asked for the password she said, “it's Warren.” A second later the door swung open and a woman stood there dressed in shorts so short Warren wondered why she bothered to wear them at all. 

“This way, please, Ms Warren. Mr. Murphy instructed us to make sure you got whatever you wanted when you came by.”

“Did he know I was coming?” she asked, following the woman into the dark and pulsing depths of Limbo. 

“I don't know. He gave us these orders weeks ago.” The woman led Warren through a different hallway than the one they'd come in on her first trip here, took her a longer distance around and away from the music and shouting. “In here, please,” she said, gesturing at an open doorway. Sunlight shone from it, and there was no noise inside. Warren cautiously poked her head in, found an empty room with lots of windows and a small but well-stocked bar. 

“Mr. Murphy will be here shortly. Would you like a drink while you wait?”

“I didn't-” Warren bit back that lie. She may not have consciously come to talk to Murphy, but now that she was here, it was all she wanted. That and some alcohol. “You have any whiskey?”

The woman smiled and poured two fingers worth into a squat round glass. “Enjoy, Ms Warren.” 

After the woman left, Warren wandered behind the bar, trailing her fingers over the different bottles, names she recognized and didn't. Cheap vodka and excellent wines. A tightly closed jar of olives and those tiny little swords to stick them on. Warren pulled one out and was fighting a losing battle with a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac when Murphy cleared his throat, startling her. 

“Glad to see you're keeping your fighting skills in shape,” he said wryly. “I'll have a glass of your foe there, once you've defeated it.” 

“Cute,” she said, grabbing the bottle and a nearby corkscrew. She poured a glass for each of them. The wine was so dark it was almost black, like a pool of blood. Warren took a slow sip. “Damn good,” she murmured. 

“It better be, it was a twelve hundred dollar bottle of wine pre-z.” 

Warren choked on hers, set the glass down. “Are you for real?”

“Living the high life in the apocalypse. I feel like we've earned it.”

“I'll drink to that.” They toasted each other and quietly enjoyed the luxury of a good glass of wine. She hadn't realized how tense she'd been, how awkward she'd felt in Altura until she was sitting here with Murphy not feeling like everything was a step off beat. “Too bad you don't have any fancy cheese plates.” 

“I could wrangle up some Cheetos.” 

“You have Cheetos here?”

“I have all kinds of things here.” He winked at her, and she shook her head and chuckled. 

“I guess you found your ideal apocalypse home, huh? Suits you. All the glitter and noise and expensive wine.”

“It's not all just show,” he said, setting his empty glass down. “We have a safe place for the Talkers here, and Marion and her idiot sons are still making bizkits in our kitchen.” 

“You also have something called a Hole-nado.”

“Everybody has different needs. What about you?”

She smirked. “I don't need a Hole-nado.”

“Not that. Your place. Where are you going to hang your hat in Newmerica?”

Warren took time to finish her glass of wine and stare out the window. She couldn't see many details, the sun was too bright streaming in, but the shadow of a bird passed across, winging its way somewhere she couldn't see. Cooper's farmhouse had seemed like the perfect place to spend the rest of her life in those weeks after he'd rescued her. She'd felt safe there with him, at peace. And often lonely, just the two of them with no one else around. Cooper may not be a joiner, but she wasn't a loner, either. She wanted people nearby, especially the friends who had become her family. 

“I haven't thought about it much yet,” she lied. “Everybody's so busy building new plans, who knows what things will look like. Maybe I'll end up in Hackerville.” 

Murphy snorted. “Ghost King would be thrilled by that. Every time we have to talk to those nerds he asks about you.” 

“Next time tell him I said hi.” 

“In this one instance I'll protect you and do no such thing.” Murphy poured them both another glass. “What brings you to Limbo?”

“I don't know.” 

“People don't just take random four hour drives, Warren.” 

“Two,” she said, smiling mischievously into her wine. 

“Jesus christ, how fast were you going?”

“Fast enough to get here in two hours.” Murphy studied her over the rim of his glass and she shrugged under his colorful-eyed stare. “I didn't really know I was coming here,” she admitted. “I just needed to not be there.”

“Sick of the humans or the politics?”

“Both.” 

“I can't promise you no humans here, but we're definitely politics free.” 

“Better than nothing, I guess.” Warren twirled the long, smooth stem of the wineglass between her fingers. “Your bruises healed nicely.”

“One of the many benefits of being me. Am I persona non grata with the others?”

“You mean more than usual? 10k told us what you did. I was pissed at you for three days straight myself. What were you thinking?”

“I don't know. Revenge? It's not like he'd been all that great to me in the years before that.” 

“He was just a kid.”

“That kid had killed thousands of zombies and his share of people by then. Nobody's just a kid in the apocalypse.” Murphy leaned forward, and his voice was urgent. “I bit him to save him. I swear that was my only thought on the sub. Everything after that...I don't know.” His shoulders slumped. “I wish like hell I hadn't done it but what can I do about it now?” 

“Well you better figure that out and make it right.”

“I think your expectations are way off base here. I'm just hoping they won't murder me at this point. So,” he added, his voice nonchalant, “do I have to worry about you murdering me?”

“We need you around for the cure still. Besides, if I was gonna murder you for the terrible shit you've done, I would have done it years ago, or have you forgotten about the nuclear weapons?”

“As if any of you would let me.” 

She inclined her head. “We've been traveling together a long time,” she said more seriously. “I've seen you change from that man in Murphytown, as much as you try to hide it behind your devil costume here. What you've been through, what happened with Lucy,” she said the name gently, the loss still a hole in her own heart. “It all means something. And I'm willing to believe in that change. The words help some folks – apologies, regret. But what matters to me is what people actually do. What you actually do. You think about other people first sometimes. You've risked your life for others and no one even had to ask.” 

“You, maybe,” he muttered, but he looked grateful. 

“You talk to Doc yet?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“I sent him a message, delivered by a certain blend.” 

“You can't seduce Doc into forgiving you.” 

“I know, I know. I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him. Prepping the field.”

“Then send him a letter, not a person!” 

Murphy sighed. “I don't know what to do. I don't want to lose Doc as a friend.” 

“Ignoring him won't help,” she said. “Just talk to him.”

“What if I bought him a new hat?”

“Murphy.” 

He waved his hand. “I know, talk to him.” He grunted and poured a last glass of wine for each of them, emptying the bottle. “I'm gonna need more wine first.” 

“What are you so afraid of?”

Murphy rolled one shoulder in a loose shrug. “What about you? You heard from Cooper yet?”

“It's only been a week. You think about him more than I do,” she said. 

“I think it's strange he'd rather live alone at that farmhouse than here.” 

“You saw it, it's a nice house. He's got plenty of food there, music. His quiet life.” 

“Alone. He could have been here, with you.” Now it was her turn to study Murphy. He tapped one long finger against his wineglass, then pressed his hand against the bar. “He's an idiot for choosing otherwise.” 

Warren went warm, like there was all the blood she needed rushing through her veins. She laid her hand on top of Murphy's, felt him startle under her touch. His hand under hers shifted, turned over so they were pressed palm to fingertips. 

“You could always stay here,” he said, his voice unexpectedly soft. “We have plenty of space.” 

“I can't. This isn't for me.” 

“And Hackerville is?”

His hand was so warm under hers; she hadn't even realized she was cold until she'd touched him. “No,” she admitted. “I don't know if my place exists.” Murphy's fingers curled in her hand. 

“Roberta-”

“Have you started on the cure yet?” she asked, cutting him off quickly. She hadn't come for any of this, needed to escape it before it overwhelmed her. 

Murphy pursed his lips and slid his hand out from under hers. The bar where his hand had been was warm too, the wood smooth on her skin. “Sun Mei was successful, I know that. Now we just have to figure out how to replicate it.” 

“Use Altura's lab.” 

“Ah,” he ran his fingers over his mustache, “no.” 

“Why not?”

“You had any incidents with the anti-Talker groups since the election?”

“Not yet.”

“That's because they keep coming here every day. They don't do anything but stand outside Limbo and yell, but they'll attack at some point.” 

“Why haven't you told anyone in Altura?” 

“That blend I sent for Doc? She didn't go alone and her partner had a message for George. Spunky Brewster seems to think they're just letting off steam after the election. That they'll get over it.” 

Warren sighed. George's optimism was the only reason they were here at all, but it needed tempering. “I'll talk to her, get her to send some soldiers over to scare them away.” 

“We can defend ourselves,” Murphy said firmly. “But those assholes are why I won't let any humans near the cure. Not until they can be trusted with it.” 

She wanted to disagree, but she'd seen the dark look in those men's eyes on election day. “Separate for now,” she said. “But the cure has to get out.”

“It will.” 

Warren leaned over the bar towards him. “As soon as it's ready. For free.”

Murphy's face twisted in a mess of emotion: hurt, guilt, annoyance, a brief flash of anger in his eyes. “You're a real downer sometimes, Jiminy Cricket.” 

“Did you just compare me to a cartoon insect?”

“If the goody two-shoe fits,” he grumbled. 

Noises from outside interrupted them, some sort of banging and what sounded like raised voices. Warren hurried to the window to see. There was nothing immediately visible, but when she craned her head to look to the left, she saw someone, a person, not a zombie, walk past and disappear around the corner. Murphy sighed from the bar where he hadn't budged. “Must be five o'clock.”

“The anti-Talker group?”

“Yeah. Come on, if you go to the back of the building you can't hear them and I have another one of those bottles. They say the same shit all the time, you're not missing anything importa- hey!” 

Warren was out the door already, her heart pounding, her hands formed into fists. If they wanted to come here and threaten talkers, they could start with her. She hurried through the hallways, somehow knowing exactly which way to turn, until she burst out of the door to Limbo, blinking away the shock of the sun after the dark hallways. The group stuttered to a stop mid-shout when the door swung open and then slammed shut behind her. 

There were four of them, three men and a woman all dressed in camo and carrying anti-Talker signs. They had guns, too, so Warren slowed as she approached them. One of the men, a tall, thickly muscled older white guy, stepped towards her and she paused. 

“You shouldn't be in there, lady, it's not safe.” 

“No scarier than Las Vegas. You remember Las Vegas, right?”

“Vegas didn't have people who would eat your brains.”

“Neither does Limbo.” She took a step nearer to him, heard the door that had slammed shut behind her open again. “It certainly doesn't have assholes with signs and guns who would shoot me if they thought I was the wrong type of person.” 

The man's eyes narrowed. “You a talker?”

“Why don't you find out?” she asked, holding her arms out to the sides and moving closer. The man's free hand went to his gun. 

“Let's not be hasty,” Murphy said from behind her, and Warren exhaled loudly, frustrated. 

“It's the talkers' leader,” the woman said. “You're an abomination!”

“And?” Murphy said, unimpressed, coming to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Warren. The woman was quiet, glaring at them. 

“Talkers are no better than zombies,” the leader said. “You're putting humans at risk by sheltering them. They shouldn't be allowed to live with us.”

“They shouldn't be allowed to live at all!” That was the woman again. 

“You came here,” Warren said. “They aren't harming you.” 

“My husband is in there,” the woman said, face going red. 

“Honey, that's a bedroom problem, not a talker problem,” Murphy said. The older man stepped forward into Murphy's space and Warren shoved herself between them. 

“Back off,” she said, quiet and deadly. The leader searched her face and took a step backward. 

“You're just like them,” he sneered. “You gonna eat my brains?”

“I don't eat empty calories,” she said sweetly. 

“Fuck you.” 

Warren took the advantage, pressed him back another step by coming forward. “You and your bigoted friends need to leave here and never come back, or you're gonna discover a whole lot more direct sympathy with talkers.” 

“She's threatening us!” the woman gasped. 

The other two men stepped forward and Warren readied herself. She was itching for this fight, her fingers tingling with adrenaline. Instead of feeling lost and empty she felt honed like a blade, filled with a purpose she knew too well. There was the loud bang of the door behind her and the sound of a lot of feet, and the leader paled and stepped back. Warren glanced over her shoulder, saw a crowd of blends swarming out of the door and falling in position behind her and Murphy. 

“Can't even fight fair,” the leader said, gesturing for the others to step back. “We're not the only ones who know what you really are. We'll be back.” 

“We'll be waiting for you,” Warren said. The leader flipped her off as they hurriedly left. _All bark_ , she thought, disappointed. Her adrenaline surged with nowhere to go and she spun on her heel and shoved Murphy. “What the hell was that?”

“Excuse me?” he said, gaping at her. “Are you mad at _me_ because I didn't let that guy jump you?”

“Yes! I could have taken him and his weakass friends!”

“Unless you were going to actually kill them, it would only have made them madder.” Warren heaved a frustrated sigh and kicked a rock. The blends disappeared back inside. “Were you gonna kill them?” Murphy asked her curiously. 

“I was gonna fight them,” she said. “Whatever happens, happens.” 

“What happened to 'we don't kill humans'?”

Warren shoved Murphy again and stalked back to the dirt bike she'd left leaning against Limbo's outer wall. Clouds were starting to gather on the horizon. 

“Warren,” Murphy said, but whatever else may have followed was swallowed by the sound of her revving the bike, a high-pitched scream that echoed in the empty street. In the corner of her eye, she saw Murphy stalking towards her, and she peeled off, leaving him with only a cloud of dust in response. He was all bark, too. But you couldn't talk your way out of everything, especially when the enemy was so certain you weren't even human. Warren hurtled down empty roads and into the last rays of sunlight. If Murphy didn't want to deal with those people, she would. It always came down to her.


	4. Chapter 4

Murphy arrived at Altura around lunch the next day. He'd waited as long as he could before leaving Limbo, not wanting to seem like a mother hen looking after Warren, but she'd been so full of untamed vengeance yesterday he wanted to be sure she'd made it back safely. He'd also brought a new hat for Doc, this one a bright teal that matched Murphy's own velvet shirt. A hat wasn't going to earn forgiveness, but he figured it couldn't hurt. 

He went to the common area first, not sure exactly where the Newmerica deliberations were happening. It was full of people, humans and talkers mingling peacefully. Except for one woman in the corner, staring flint-eyed over her drink at the crowd, and the man leaning over the railing on the balcony, not listening to the person talking at him in favor of glaring down at a small group of obvious talkers. 

“Danger, Will Robinson,” Murphy murmured. He saw George talking animatedly with some folks, but Addy was there, too, so Murphy steered clear for now. Doc first. Then he could see if George knew where Warren was once Addy had gone. 

It was easy to find Doc, easy to hear his happy voice over the chatter of the crowd. He was with a familiar-looking Native American woman who was smiling lovingly at him and listening intently to whatever he was saying. Murphy hesitated, fingered the brim of the hat nervously. What if Doc didn't want to talk to him? Then Doc turned his head, saw Murphy, and fell silent. 

Murphy gave him a little wave, moved closer. “Hey, Doc.”

“Murphy.” 

Now that he was nearer, Murphy recognized the woman. “Kuruk?”

She was staring at him, her eyes round with surprise. “Murphy? What happened to you?”

“That story would take forty-five hours to explain fully. What are you doing here?”

“Our tribe protects the water. You must be the one who runs Limbo. The Big Red One your representative calls you.” 

He did a little half-bow. “At your service.” 

“What brings you here?”

“I was hoping to talk to Doc, actually.” He glanced at the other man, who was eyeing him coolly. Murphy's stomach dropped. “You know what, I can always come back. I don't want to intrude.”

“No, please,” Kuruk glanced between them. “I need to speak with George anyway.” She kissed Doc on the cheek, patted Murphy's arm, and glided off. 

“You and Kuruk huh?” Murphy said. 

“Me and Kuruk what?”

“Uh, I meant, she looked so happy.” Was he sweating? It felt like he was sweating. “You looked happy together.” 

“We are.” Doc folded his arms over his chest. “What do you want, Murphy?”

The hat seemed stupid now, but he held it out. “I got this for you.”

Doc stared down at the hat. “First the blend lady and now a hat? Are you trying to buy my goodwill?”

“Is it working?” Murphy asked hopefully.

“Murphy,” Doc sighed. “Do you even know why I'm mad at you?”

It felt like a trick question. Murphy gripped the brim of the hat tightly. “Because I hurt the kid?”

“And?”

“And...because...I didn't apologize to him?”

“And why does that matter?”

Murphy was definitely sweating now, his back itchy with it. He wished he'd talked to Warren about this more before approaching Doc. “Because...I...should have?” 

Doc's whole body tightened and his face flushed. “I guess that flesh-eating bacteria ate your humanity, too.” 

“What do you want from me, Doc?”

“I want you to be a decent human being for once!” His voice jumped and people near them glanced over. “You don't apologize to people because you have to,” he said more quietly, but no less forcefully. “You do it because you want to. When you hurt someone you actually care about, you apologize. It's the most basic lesson a person learns!”

“You're right, and I do feel bad about what I did to 10k. I do!” he said sincerely at Doc's grunt of disbelief. “I shouldn't have done that to him. But I did it and an apology isn't gonna change it.”

“No, but it shows you care about what you did. That you'll learn from it.”

“It's not like I've ever done it again.”

Doc hung his head. “Maybe there's no hope for you, Murphy.”

“I just said I felt bad about it! Doc, come on,” he gripped the other man's shoulder. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry I never apologized to 10k. How can I fix this?”

“I don't know, Murphy.” Doc shrugged out of his grip, his eyes dark with sadness. “Maybe you can't. I gotta go.” He hurried away, pushing through the crowd. 

Kuruk materialized next to him. “That did not go well.”

“Were you eavesdropping?”

“Just watching. He's mad at you.” She took a sip from her tea. 

“No shit.” 

“He's a good man. Doesn't get mad very often. Forgives quickly, especially his friends. You must have done something terrible.”

Murphy exhaled loudly. “Yeah. I did.”

“Steven Beck doesn't like to hold on to his anger. He always seeks a way to release it, as long as the person is genuinely remorseful for the hurt they've caused.”

Murphy glanced down at her, met her calm brown eyes. “So it's not the apology?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You tell me. Did your apology work today?”

“No.” He looked back to where Doc had disappeared. 

“Why not?”

“If I knew that, I would have fixed it.”

“Perhaps the apology was more about being caught in the act, than the act itself.”

“I told him I felt bad about it.”

Kuruk shook her head. “You couldn't have felt that bad if you spent all those years ignoring it.” 

“Are you sure you weren't eavesdropping?” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. 

“Maybe a little,” she said, holding her fingers an inch apart. “But you know I'm right.”

“So, what, I have to convince him I actually feel regret about it now?”

“Do you?” 

“I-” Murphy paused. Did he? Murphy hated thinking about the past; it had never done him any favors. Better to push on, keep surviving and, as much as possible, thriving. But he would do almost anything for Doc, even look at his past, so Murphy thought now about those years ago: taunting 10k with his freedom, 10k locked in a cell, the blood on 10k's hand, 10k's silent tears. It was like watching some terrible movie and then realizing it was all real and he'd done it all himself. Murphy's stomach turned over, his whole body suddenly flushed with guilt. He had been the cause of all of that, and for what? A petty victory over a helpless kid? If this was regret, it felt _awful_. He wanted to run from it, but it sat like a stone inside his body, holding him down. “I do,” he said solemnly. “Christ I really was an asshole. That was unforgivable.” 

“That's the spirit,” Kuruk said cheerfully. “Start with that. Admit it to yourself, believe it, do the work on it, and then he'll forgive you.”

He looked at her. “You really think so?” he asked hopefully. 

She took another drink of her tea. “Doc loves redeemable assholes.” 

Murphy snorted, handed her the hat. “Give this to him for me?” She took it and nodded, slid her fingers over the smooth brim. “And thanks.” 

“Thank me later. The hardest part comes next.” 

He nodded and looked around for George, found her Addy-free for the moment. Murphy wove through the crowd, and when she saw him she smiled and waved him over. It was refreshing being openly welcomed by someone. 

“Mr. Murphy,” George said, holding out her hand to shake. He indulged her. “Good to see you. We missed you at the Election Day party. How is Limbo?”

“Same as always. Have you seen Warren?”

George's smile slipped a little. “Not since yesterday. If you could excuse us?” she said to the two men she had been talking to, then tugged Murphy to a more private alcove nearby. Her face was serious now. “She left right in the middle of a meeting yesterday afternoon, and we haven't seen her since. I figured she just needed some time to herself. I know politics isn't her thing, and she'd been helping me a lot this week.”

“She came to Limbo after she left your meeting. We talked a little bit and then she had an encounter with that anti-talker group I told you about.”

“They're still coming around?”

“Every day. Warren decided she was going to try to threaten them back to the hole they crawled out of,” he ignored George's disapproving frown, “but since everybody had guns I figured that would be a bad idea. When my blends scared them off, she got mad and bolted. I thought she was coming back here.”

“I haven't seen her. Did you need her for something?”

He shifted, embarrassed. “I was just checking up on her. She didn't have a helmet,” he added weakly. 

George's lips twitched into a smile. “Thoughtful of you. But no,” she stared around the room, serious. “I haven't seen her. Did you ask Doc and Addy?”

“No. Could you ask them for me? Just have someone keep an eye out for her?”

“Is something wrong?”

He chewed his bottom lip. How much would Warren want George to know? “She's worn out. A lot has happened, and she doesn't always look out for herself.” 

“That's awfully considerate of you.”

“You don't have to look so surprised,” Murphy snapped. 

“I just-” she waved her hand. “Sorry. We'll look for her. I'll call you with any news. You do have a phone now, right?”

“Are you kidding? I'm not letting Hackerville install their spy networks in Limbo. Send a carrier pigeon.” 

“Phones are faster and more reliable. Nobody's gonna spy on you.”

“Tell that to Estes.” 

George sighed. “You should at least get one for emergencies,” she said. “In the meantime, are you going to stay here until we find her?”

Murphy glanced around, saw Addy, Doc, and 10k all huddled in a corner conspicuously not looking at him. He thought again of 10k's face back in Murphytown, pale and pained. Murphy swallowed around the knot in his throat. “I need to get back to Limbo,” he said. “Just let me know when you find her.” 

He left her just as a new group of sycophants fawned up. His feet longed to pull him towards the others, but every time he looked at 10k he felt such a wave of self-disgust he wasn't sure what he could even say. Better to leave them alone so they wouldn't have to deal with him. Better instead to return to Limbo, where Wesson and the others would be waiting eagerly for his return. 

He strode back to the shiny Mustang he'd driven here. The blends. He'd treated them better, at least. Hadn't he? He'd fed them, clothed them, given them hope and life. The blends were his family and he'd treated them as such. They had nothing to be mad at him for. _Not that they know how to be mad at their controller_ his Warren-voice popped up. 

“It's not like that,” he said in the confines of the car. “They're happy because they're happy. I didn't make them set up Limbo. Or find me. That was all them.” He started the car, the engine roaring like a lion. The blends had done all that work on their own and, yeah, sometimes their need to please him bordered on obsessive and creepy, but he wasn't forcing anyone to do anything. Not like he'd done to 10k. “How the fuck am I going to make that right?” he said out loud. He drove the car into the afternoon, trying to figure out that question the entire way home.


	5. Chapter 5

Although Warren waited for them all day, the anti-talker group never came back to Limbo. She'd only sped off to Altura to grab supplies so she could come back and stakeout Limbo without anyone seeing her. She'd sat at the top of a nearby building, baking in the sun while the rain from the night before evaporated all around her. Warren hardly had to eat or drink, had realized her low appetite over the last months was a symptom of being dead not worried. Birds circled overhead and landed on the roof with her, heads bobbing curiously. They were small white and gray birds with little black caps on top. The birds spent most of the day with her hopping around, pecking at the ground, warbling happily. Nature taking over what humanity had spent so long building. 

She saw Murphy leave in the morning and heard the roar of his car when he returned as the sun was nearing the horizon. He slammed the door when he got out, leaned with both hands against the roof of the car. His shoulders were hunched and his body radiated misery. 

“What happened to you?” she whispered. He straightened quickly and looked around and Warren ducked down, worried he'd somehow heard her. He'd said he could feel her; it was the reason he went searching for her after the drone. Who knew what other connection they had? When she peeked back over the edge of the roof, though, he was gone. 

As the sun touched the edge of the world, Warren figured the anti-talker group was not coming back today, which meant it was up to her to find them. “Better get started now,” she told the birds. “Before I lose the light completely.” She scattered what was left of her food for them, was rewarded with chirping so frenetic she had to laugh. At least when all the humans were gone, the little birds would still be here. 

Warren headed down the road the group had left yesterday, which fortunately was not the same direction Murphy had just driven in from. He had gone east, and these tracks headed south. She unearthed her dirt bike from where she'd hidden it and started walking it out of the area, following the tire tracks for a mile before starting up the bike and seeing where they led.

**********

It took nearly six hours of stopping and starting, walking the bike off and on for miles for safety, before she finally found evidence that someone was near: a truck parked off the side of the road in the distance, a light glinting faintly behind it. It was fully dark now and the moon was a thin sliver in the sky. There were thousands of stars twinkling above. Thousands of stars that had tens of thousands of planets, none of which had a zombie apocalypse. Just here. “Lucky us,” Warren whispered to the night.

Warren found a good set of bushes to hide her bike in and crept nearer. It was the middle of the night and there was no talking from the area, but she crouched low and moved in slow, small bursts, dropping to the ground to avoid detection in case they had someone on watch. She avoided the truck, came around the long way, following the line of cover behind some sort of pokey-leafed bushes. When she was close enough she saw they had had someone on watch, but he was slumped on a log, snoring. They were all asleep, but none of them looked familiar in the shadows cast by the fire. It could have been anyone. She'd need proof before she did anything. 

What that anything was, she had no idea. Murphy's point about not killing humans had been rubbing her raw since he said it, like sand in her shoes. How did he have the right to judge her for killing humans? He'd been preaching the death of humanity since he'd started speaking to zombies. It had been her who'd stood up to him time and again, who'd done everything, lost everything – including her own humanity - trying to save them. These anti-talker groups were just another threat to humanity's survival. Someone had to stand up to them; who better than her? Warren settled into her hiding spot, considering what that was going to entail. She'd figure it out by the time they awoke.

**********

The sun spearing into her eyes and the sounds of people waking up roused Warren from where she'd fallen asleep on the ground. Her body ached, annoyingly. If she was going to be the living dead, she should at least get the benefit of muscles not hurting.

Shifting as little as possible, Warren studied the group. There were eight people total, five men and three women. In the light, she saw that two of them were from the group she'd confronted at Limbo, and she felt a thrill shiver through her. She'd found the right people. Sometime before she'd dosed off, she'd decided she wasn't going to kill them, since that would only cause problems without getting the message across. She needed them to live so they could warn the rest of the group. Well, she needed most of them to live. 

Warren pulled out her machete and burst out of the ground cover shouting “HEY!” 

The group seemed to jump as one; one man tripped in his sleeping bag, another poured hot coffee on himself and screamed. The woman nearest her was alert and had her gun raised within seconds. 

“Oh shit,” one of the men said. “That's the lady from the other day.” 

“Nice to see you,” Warren said sarcastically, machete held out to the side. “Where you headed?”

“None of your business,” the woman with the gun said. The others had their weapons ready now, too. 

Warren smiled. “Awful lot of firepower for one person with a knife.”

“I know you,” a woman said, pushing forward. She looked sort of familiar, but Warren didn't know her name. “Lieutenant Warren. You're the one that came to Pacifica and lectured us.” 

“You were being ignorant, you needed lecturing.” 

The woman's eyes narrowed. “I won't let talkers destroy my family just because you're friends with them. You get yourself eaten, not me. They're no better than zombies, and they deserve the same treatment.”

“Mercy?” Warren asked. “Is that what you call killing humans?”

“Talkers aren't human,” a different man spit. 

“No? Why not?”

“Because they're dead!”

“So a dead deer isn't a deer?” The man glared at her. “They sure do have a lot of personality for dead folk.”

“It's not real,” the man from Limbo said, but he sounded less sure than before. 

“Don't listen to her, Jake,” the Pacifica woman said. “She's just trying to confuse you. She's friends with that devil, of course she'd take his side. The fact is the only thing keeping them from being zombies are those bizkits. We can't have them among us, pretending to be our loved ones, waiting to eat us.”

“You never knew anyone who took medication to survive in the world pre-z?”

The man's face paled. “Maybe she's right, Linda,” he whispered. “Maybe-”

But the woman brought up her gun and shot Warren, a punch to the stomach that left Warren bent over and the others shouting. They all went silent when Warren straightened and said, “I'll give you that one.” 

The woman shot her again, this time a bruising strike to the ribs, then a quick follow-up to her arm. When Warren just stared at her, the woman shrieked, “she's a talker!” 

Warren leapt into action, whirling her machete and taking out the gun of the woman nearest her, the one who looked most competent in the group. She gasped, and Warren kicked her in the knee, sending her to the ground. There was another gunshot and Warren felt a hit in her back. When she spun, the man who'd shot her fumbled his weapon long enough for her to score a long, debilitating cut along his arm and make him drop the gun. Two more men surged forward and the world become a blur as Warren dodged, struck, kicked, and felt the occasional glancing blow. If she'd had blood, it would have been roaring through her, but her heart pounded anyway, a driving beat that didn't stop until the attackers were all on the ground. She'd pulled her punches during the fight, had cut close to arteries but never into them, but it had taken every ounce of willpower she had. Taking stock now, none of them looked dead, or at least they weren't turning yet. Jake was the only one of his group that remained standing, his eyes wild, gun at his side. She advanced on him, fingers tightening around her machete.

“Don't kill me,” he pleaded. 

Warren halted, felt disgust course through her, though she couldn't tell if it was for him or for herself. “You tell all your anti-talker friends that this is Newmerica now, and Newmerica welcomes talkers. If they have a problem with it, there's a whole lotta country south of us they're welcome to.” She turned her back on the man, confident he wouldn't do a damn thing. They'd live and they would tell the others and if they wanted a fight, she was ready for them. On her way out Warren stepped on the hand of the woman who'd shot her first, grinding her boot down and enjoying the scream.


	6. Chapter 6

When Warren walked into Limbo later that afternoon, Murphy breathed a sigh of relief until he saw the look in her eyes. That was a woman looking to get drunk and find someone to fight. 

She was taking this being dead thing about as well as could be expected, he figured. He waved her over, had a shot of something strong and punchy ready when she strode up. Warren downed it without a word, her face pinching when it kicked its way down her throat, and then lifted her glass for another. 

Murphy raised an eyebrow but filled the glass up again. “You get three on the house,” he said, “after that we have to negotiate.” 

She set her empty glass on the counter and he filled it a third time. After she'd downed that one in a long swallow, too, she set it down gently and leaned towards him. “You get me a fourth one,” she said in that silk voice of hers, “and I won't punch you in the face. Let's negotiate on that.” Closer now, he noticed fresh bullet holes in her clothes. He frowned and filled her glass. 

“You drive that kind of bargain with whoever shot you?” he asked. 

Warren smiled at him, a sharp-edged grin that held little humor and a lot of violence. It was disturbingly sexy. He wondered idly whether there was a different room he could steer her to when the fight she was inevitably going to get in finally broke out. Somewhere with a lot less breakable glassware, for instance. 

He set the bottle down next to her and went to serve other customers, keeping an eye on Warren as he did. She drank straight from the bottle, and he was both impressed by her stamina and horrified at how much money he was losing. That hooch was expensive to make. 

Murphy smiled at the man in front of him, gave him a drink and a wink, and sidled back over towards Warren. “Maybe slow down a little? That's my only bottle of that right now,” he said easily. 

Warren glared at him anyway, but she did pause and set the bottle down. It was over half empty. 

“Rough day at the office?” he asked, grabbing a glass and something ninety percent less alcoholic for himself. 

“Rough apocalypse,” Warren said, pouring a drink. But instead of drinking it, she just stared at it. 

“Don't I know it.”

She glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed. “You think you know what I'm going through?”

“Do you not remember however many years ago when Sun Mei told me I was dead and had been the whole time? I'm the only one who does know what you're going through, don't take your shit out on me.”

Her hand tightened around the glass and Murphy realized direct talk may not have been his best tactic. 

“At least I'm not going crazy creating a whole army of mindless slaves,” she said in an entirely too calm voice.

“They're not slaves,” he hissed, unable to resist the bait. “And I don't know what you've been up to, but you sure look like you're going to cause trouble here.” 

Warren hurled her full glass against the wall of bottles behind him, sending a chunk of them to the ground with a deafening crash, and the room went silent, staring. 

“Like that?” she asked, her voice too sweet. 

“Can I see you in the other room?” he whispered harshly, coming around the bar and grabbing her arm. When her whole body went tight and tense he dropped it again immediately and gestured for her to go first. “Everything's fine,” he said in a cheerful voice to the rest of Limbo's patrons. “Just a little fun we have. Next round is on the house!” The room cheered and went back to their individual sins, ignoring Warren, although Murphy didn't see how when she was radiating so much chaotic emotion he couldn't breathe. 

He directed her up a short stairway and into one of the rooms people could rent for whatever they wanted as long as they paid well for cleanup after. This room had been bleached from top to bottom just yesterday, and the astringent smell lingered in the air. There was a bed in good shape for the zompocalypse, a single chair, and a window that was bright with sunlight through the pale curtains. Warren shoved her way inside and just stood there, her back to him while he shut the door and considered what to do. Wherever she'd gone after she'd left here, it had ended in a fight. She'd obviously won, but at what cost? And what would it take to soothe the angry fire burning her up from the inside? 

That he could help with. A minute later, there was a knock at the door. Warren turned her head. “Expecting someone?”

“Actually yes,” Murphy said. “I've got two blends out there, a man and a woman, and they volunteered to be yours for whatever you want.”

“What if I want to beat their brains in?” 

Murphy blanched. “You wouldn't do that.”

“You don't know that,” she said. She still wouldn't look at him. But he could see the anger and pain in her profile. “Maybe I would now that I'm dead.”

“Maybe try fucking them first, instead.”

She did turn around then, so fast he half expected her to slap him. “You think fucking someone is going to make me feel better that easily? I'm not you, Murphy. I will never be you.”

That one stung, but he swallowed it down. “I think I've seen a lot of people with that look in their eyes and I don't want someone to get hurt because you're losing control.”

“People have already been hurt. You just don't want me to mess up your precious Limbo.”

“Damn right I don't. But I also don't want you to do something you're going to regret. Or something that's going to make others think less of you.”

“I don't care what other people think.”

“You've fought too long in the apocalypse to start your post-apocalypse life by getting in a stupid fight. You're not me, remember? People actually respect you still.”

“Death.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Post-apocalypse death, not life.” 

“Call it whatever you want, just work it out without ruining mine, too, will you?”

Her hands were in tight fists at her side, her mouth a tight line on her face. “This is your fault,” she whispered.

“ _My_ fault? I didn't put you in that drone and get you killed.”

“If it weren't for your blood, I would've died on the top of that tower.” 

“And that would be better?” Her only answer were the angry half-breaths that sounded like a steam engine in the quiet. He hated that she would always choose death over what he could give her, was glad The Man's bullet had taken the choice out of both their hands. “You want to blame me for your unlife, go for it, I've been blamed for more that I deserved less.” He sent the blends away with a thought, ignored their disappointment. Every single one had a crush on Warren, he suspected at least in part because of his own feelings for her. “You don't want to do anything with my blends, fine. But you're not leaving here until you get out whatever this,” he gestured vaguely at her, “ is.” 

“This is none of your business.” 

“Then why did you come here?”

“I don't know!” She took a step towards the door and he blocked her path. “Get out of my way, Murphy.” 

“Make me.”

And she did. Warren let go with a fist that felt like a concrete block against his chin, and he went crashing back into the door. 

He pressed his hand gingerly to his face, blinked away stars long enough to see blood on his fingers when he pulled them away. He had to stop inviting people to hit him, they were all way too eager to do it. “What the fuck?”

Warren stepped towards him, still glaring. “You told me to do it!”

“I didn't think you'd listen to me!” 

He saw anger surge in her, about to spiral out of control. He'd gotten a lot better at fighting since the beginning, but he couldn't take her, didn't want to. He couldn't hurt Warren but he also couldn't leave her or let her go. She was aching, a live wire ready to ignite whatever got in her way. It might as well be him. He straightened and stared her down. 

“You're staying here until you calm down,” he said.

Warren fisted her hands in his shirt and he tensed, waiting for her to throw him aside, but she shoved him back against the wall and kissed him hard, until his lip was burning where she'd hit him. Every last, rational thought in his head was set on fire in the feel of Warren's lips pressed against his. She broke the kiss and they stared at each other, their breathing heavy against the faint sounds of Limbo outside the door. Murphy felt like he'd been struck by lightning, his whole body sensitive and buzzing. 

Warren pulled her shoes and jacket off and Murphy stared dumbfounded at the round curve of her bare shoulder. They had never even hugged each other yet she was stripping right in front of him. “You're right, maybe I do need to fuck somebody,” she said and Murphy's dick was ready to do whatever she needed. _It shouldn't be like this_ , some part of him protested, but his body vehemently disagreed. 

She tugged his tie free, yanked open his shirt, sending buttons scattering, and undid the giant, gleaming belt buckle at his waist before his brain caught up. Against every instinct in his body, he grabbed her wrists, holding her hands still at his zipper. “Wait,” he said and she turned fierce, burning eyes to his. Warren freed herself with a deceptively simple move and scraped her sharp nails down his bare chest, over the faint scars of his zombie bites. 

“If you don't want this, just say so,” she purred. She tugged at his nipple and the pain-pleasure of it made him gasp. He'd wanted this - wanted her - so long he'd forgotten what it was like to be free of it. _Not like this_ his brain tried one more time, but his body wasn't listening anymore. If she needed someone to fuck to feel better, he would eagerly be first in line. He wasn't going to miss this chance just because there weren't candles and rose petals strewn about the room. Murphy tugged Warren's shirt up and her pants down and kicked them both to the corner of the room before grabbing her and switching positions, pressing her against the door. If he could control this, maybe they'd both get out of it unscathed.

Murphy knelt at her feet and pulled off Warren's plain white cotton underwear. He let his fingertips trail down her smooth skin as he drew the panties off of her, holding her gaze the entire time. She loomed over him, glowing and gorgeous. He threw her panties behind him and spread her legs apart with his hands. 

“Fuck,” Murphy breathed, admiring her. He buried himself nose-deep in cropped, bristly hair, and lapped at Warren's folds while she moaned above him. He groaned low in his chest, sucked Warren's clit until she grabbed his hair with her hands and tugged hard, trying to pull him up and away. But Murphy stayed where he was, eating her out even as her grip got stronger, her breaths sharper. He sucked and licked her relentlessly, soaking his beard, her legs stiffening against his shoulders. Murphy kept at it until she cried out and her head banged against the door, her hands going limp against his head, and then he went further, pushing his fingers into her, sliding them in and out while he devoured her wetness, and Warren's cries turned louder until she put one of her feet on his chest and kicked him away. 

Murphy landed on his ass and she pushed herself away from the door, glaring down at him. “I wasn't done yet,” she said, panting. 

“Don't worry about that, darlin'. We're not even close to finished.” He stood up and tugged her towards him. 

Warren resisted and instead shoved him back onto the bed and straddled him, finishing unzipping his pants to let his aching dick free. “How much can you take?” she asked, sliding down onto his length. It felt like he was being consumed by the sun. “Because I can go for hours.” She moved up and down once, slowly, and Murphy knew he'd been an idiot to think he could control any of this, that they wouldn't both be burned. 

He grit his teeth, watched the ceiling above her head as she rode him in long, slow, agonizing movements, so slick and warm he could have come just from the feel of her. Helpless, already close enough to be in trouble, he pulled her down on top of him and kissed her again. He tried for tenderness but she met him with teeth, licked the blood on his lip. 

Murphy groaned, shifted, and sat up with Warren in his lap. His balls were trapped in his tight jeans this way and it hurt enough that he could have a face full of Warren's breasts as she moved in his arms and still hold on. He moved her bra aside with his teeth to suck at her nipples. She gasped when he did, digging her nails into his back. 

“You always were good with your mouth,” she breathed. 

“I'm good with my hands, too,” he murmured. He let go of her waist and brought his hand between them, playing with her clit and moving their bodies to thrust deeper. Warren inhaled sharply and threw her head back, exposing her throat. Murphy licked the hollow where her heart kept beating not believing she could die. He didn't believe it, either. She was a goddess of the apocalypse, strong and sure, caring and kind, no matter how she felt otherwise. 

Warren grabbed at him and tried to pull his hand away, but the angle was more awkward for her than him and her fingers grasped helplessly at his arm while he sped up, tugging and pinching her clit until her moans slid up into a sharp scream and she clenched around him, hot and pulsing. Murphy bit his own lip hard enough to draw more blood, the pain distracting him just enough that he didn't join her yet. 

“You sure you've got hours?” he managed once she'd stilled and settled her forehead on his shoulder. 

“Fuck you,” she whispered, sliding off and leaving him aching and cold. “And fuck me.” She lay back against the wall and Murphy almost lost it just looking at her, her legs spread wide, her eyes burning in challenge. He'd wallpaper his dreams with this image of her for the rest of his life. 

He pulled his shirt and jeans off and sighed in relief. Her thighs were strong and smooth when he ran his hands up and around to her hips, lifting her into position. He pressed his dick against her heat, tried to slide in slow, but Warren pushed insistently against him and Murphy gasped as he was suddenly enveloped. She smiled triumphantly. Murphy's chest hurt with the force of everything he felt for her, everything he felt from her. 

“Jesus,” he uttered reverently, holding her body still for a moment, his hands firm on her hips. But as much as he wanted to linger, to make this last until all her fight and frenzy had been soothed, her heart put at ease, when she moved against him again the last of his restraint slipped away and Murphy held her tight and fucked her hard and fast. Flat sunlight spread over her stomach, shiny with sweat. It was like being lost in a dream, his world fuzzy and unreal except for Warren's bright light at the center. She made small, desperate noises that mingled with the slap of their bodies against each other and drove Murphy higher. But it wasn't just her body he was feeling; her emotions crashed in a relentless tidal wave against him, too. Need and desire, desperation and pleasure, a wanting so vast he couldn't escape. He groaned, felt heat and pressure building and fought it, tried to hold on until refusing was impossible – it had always been, when it came to her – and he cried out and gave in. 

Spent, he leaned forward as Warren slid out and away from him. Murphy ended up on the mattress alone, breathing hard and not quite aware of what was happening. By the time he'd gotten control of himself again, Warren was already half-dressed. A drop of sweat hesitated at her temple, and then slid down to disappear into her hair. The sun was lazy on the floor, dimmer now. The faint sounds of Limbo filtered back into the quiet. He still had her taste on his lips. 

“Leaving so soon?” he asked, hoping he'd hidden the disappointment behind the words. 

Warren didn't look at him directly. “No reason to stay.” 

_Ouch_. Murphy rolled over onto his back, propped his head up on his hands and tried to rein in the painful beating of his heart. Tried to look like he hadn't been utterly shaken up and turned inside out. “If you ever need anything else...” 

“I'll keep you in mind.” Warren tossed his clothes onto his stomach. “Your lip okay?”

He'd forgotten about it until that moment, but it burned now. “I'm used to it,” he said, pressing gentle fingertips to the cut. Warren frowned and took a step towards him. 

“I shouldn't have hit you.”

“You're right.”

“And I'll pay for the glass I broke.” 

He waved that off. “We have a budget for bar fights, don't worry about it.” Murphy sat up on the bed, his clothes bundled in his lap. “Feeling less likely to kill someone now?”

“I suppose so.” She pulled her jacket on. He noticed a hole in the back and felt a sharp spike of anger. Only cowards shot people in the back. He should know. “I went after the anti-talker group,” she said. “I didn't kill them. I wanted to, though.”

“But you didn't.”

“But I wanted to. They're just humans.”

“Humans who are more than happy to kill innocent talkers. And taking a look at that jacket of yours, it seems like they were happy to kill you, too.” He swallowed back the rage that someone would try to do that to her, busied himself with pulling his pants on. “I wouldn't feel too bad about it.” 

“You didn't want to kill them.”

“I'm a lover not a fighter,” he said. “As you can attest to.”

Warren didn't respond to that, but after he zipped his pants and chanced another look at her, her body seemed easier in its skin, her eyes not as stormy. Murphy examined the shirt she'd ripped off of him, shrugged and put it on, letting it hang open since half the buttons were missing. 

“What next?” he asked, not sure what kind of answer he wanted to that particular question. 

“I should head back to Altura” Warren said. She was giving him the surface answer, apparently. “I'm sure George is wondering where I am.”

“She is.” On Warren's curious look he added, “I was there yesterday. Did she give you a phone?”

“I don't want one. Bad enough we're in an apocalypse, I don't want to be always available on top of it.” 

“Limbo is phone-free, too. You can always hide out here.” _Jesus, too desperate._

But Warren's lips had twitched into a small smile. “You keep that fancy wine around, I'll come by more often.” 

He vowed to find a truck full of it. “I'll save it for you.” 

“Thanks.” Warren nodded and turned for the door, and Murphy wondered what magic words he could say that would keep her here with him. Usually after sex he couldn't wait to leave or be left. But everything was different with her. 

“Warren,” he blurted as her hand touched the doorknob. She paused and looked back. _Just ask her not to go._ “Drive safe, huh? There aren't exactly road crews in Newmerica if you get in an accident.”

She huffed, a sound of amusement and annoyance rolled together, and walked out the door.


	7. Chapter 7

Warren took her time driving back to Altura, not really wanting to leave after...well, after having sex with Murphy. She rolled the words around in her head, the feel of them and what they meant. The feel of him had been intense, those long-fingered hands of his a gift. Her body felt sated, her mind more at ease. More importantly, she felt alive, in a way not even fighting the anti-talker group had made her. That had been adrenaline and vengeance. This was something else. 

For having been in the apocalypse together for so many years, they'd touched so little, and yet kissing him, pressing her body against his, felt perfectly inevitable, a point in their relationship she'd known deep down they'd eventually come to. It was a relief to finally be here. He'd been a selfish ass for most of the time she'd known him, but in these last few years he'd been an attractive ass whom she'd grown to care about, and she had needs. The apocalypse had taught her not to want things for herself, though, and they'd needed Murphy alive more than she needed him so she'd ignored those thoughts and done what she could to save humanity. Now look where she was; where they both were. She and Murphy were so much more alike than not now, had each grown towards the other to meet in the middle in this new space. 

The road curved around a gently sloping hill and then into forest, sunlight blinking on and off through the trees as she drove. When she'd gone back to Limbo after taking on the anti-talker group, she'd thought it had been to get drunk in celebration, but she'd been so pissed off and confused still. She berated herself for not killing some of the anti-talkers; she regretted going after them in the first place. She couldn't think straight and that just made her madder. But Murphy had stood his ground in front of her, willing to take whatever she gave to keep her safe. That had been the most confusing part of all. When she grabbed his shirt she had no idea what she was going to do, would probably have thrown him to the ground if she'd seen anything but the sincere concern shining in his eyes. 

The real emotional sinkhole had opened when she'd laid back and told him to fuck her and he'd looked like he'd won every lottery on earth at once. She didn't know Murphy's face could be that soft, that full of awed wonder. It cracked her heart open like a sledgehammer and she'd had to leave quickly after to keep from asking if she could stay. It was safer to leave. 

She could have sex with him and she could love him, but she could not afford to be _in_ love with him, to treat this or him as more than a pleasant distraction. Limbo wasn't her place, that hadn't been a lie, but it terrified her to think her place might actually be a person. Warren had been down that road in the past and she wasn't sure she could come back from it again when it all went wrong. 

She crested a small hill and saw Altura's gates in the distance glinting in the low-hanging sun at her back. Warren came to a stop and stared at the outpost. They were having dinner now, she guessed. A week since the election, so she expected George would be making some speech to mark the occasion. Warren would have to talk to George about the anti-talker group, about what to expect going forward; George had to make it clear to everyone that talkers were not just citizens, they were humans. Warren looked at the bullet holes in her jacket and couldn't remember what it felt like to be alive. 

There was another road peeling off from this one, heading northeast to the rest of Newmerica. It would be easy to turn her bike that way, walk when she ran out of gas, and just keep going until she couldn't go any further. Or find another path south back into the old United States, where there were plenty of zombies left to fight. 

_Or you could turn around_ she thought in the voice that she'd come to think of as her inner Murphy. The one that made bad ideas seem like good ones. _He wouldn't turn you away._

He wouldn't, and that was the problem. It would be a million times easier if she could go back and he wouldn't look at her with that terrible tenderness. 

Instead she revved her bike to drown out the voice and sped towards Altura. As she neared the gates, waving at 10k who was on watch, she heard chanting coming from somewhere further inside the compound. 10k met her as she pulled through and parked the bike. 

“Hey,” he said. “We were wondering where you went.”

She patted his cheek. “You know how it is, just needed a couple days break. What's that sound? Celebration?”

“No. Protestors.” 

Warren's chest tightened. “Anti-talkers?”

“Pro-talkers. I don't really know about what. George was looking for you, they interrupted her speech.”

“Where is she?”

“Probably back by the market area. She was giving it outside to make room for everybody visiting.” 

“Thanks.” She thought of Murphy and felt briefly, oddly guilty. “You doing ok?”

10k looked confused. “Yeah.”

“You, uh, talk to Murphy?”

“No. He came by here yesterday and talked to Doc, but not me.” He didn't look upset, but 10k had never been comfortable with his softer feelings. All those years growing up in the apocalypse had honed him to a knife edge, deadly with whatever you put in his hand but too sharp to feel at ease emotionally with anything but anger and irony. 

“He's probably confused about what to do.”

“I don't care what he does. I wish Red had never brought it up.” 

“I'm glad she did; Murphy deserved a few good punches to the face for it.” 

10k smiled a little. “I did enjoy that.” 

“You could take a swing at him, too.”

10k shrugged. “Mostly I just want to go back to forgetting it. It was easier that way.”

“You do what you need, baby boy. But remember that sometimes what you need isn't the easy way.” Warren patted his cheek again. “I should go find George.” 

She started off, paused when he called out “Hey Warren.” 

“Yeah?”

“Would you forgive him if you were me?”

Warren put her hands on her hips and looked up at the darkening sky. She considered what it would have been like if Murphy had bitten her back at Murphytown, overrode her free will to make her do what he wanted, and then disappeared only to come back years later like nothing had happened. Would the changes he'd been through since then be enough, if it had happened to her? “I don't know,” she said truthfully. “I'd probably hate him for awhile. It would matter what he did to atone, if I thought he really meant it.” 

“You think someone like that can change?”

“Yes,” she said firmly, meeting his gaze. 10k had killed almost nine thousand zombies and probably several hundred humans, but he still looked at her with unwavering trust. 

“How can you be so sure?”

“We have to believe in redemption. Or else none of us deserves the post-apocalypse life we want.” Warren watched him consider it, nod a little. 

“Thanks,” he said before turning to climb back up the watchtower. Even with one hand an antler he climbed confidently, his rifle slung across his back. He'd adapted to the loss, to all the losses one after another since Day 1, by moving forward and not looking back. Just like all of them. It had been imperative when they were fighting their way across the country, but maybe that wasn't what any of them needed now. Maybe part of starting this new life was accepting the old one so they could move on into something better. 

Warren headed further into Altura to look for George and found her by following the sounds of the protestors. There was a huge crowd milling around, murmuring uneasily while loud chanting drummed rhythmically over top of them. 

“Just because we died, we shouldn't have to hide!” the talkers repeated. 

George was standing on top of a nearby set of steps, frowning as she watched the talkers marching in a circle, fists pumping the air. When she spotted Warren heading her way, she looked so relieved Warren felt badly for having left. 

“There you are,” George said, exhaling long and loud. “Thank god.”

“What's happening?” 

“They interrupted the speech I was giving. I was just trying to make sure we kept the spirit of the whole thing in mind; people have been at each other's throats the last day or two.”

“Everybody's forgotten what it's like to live in a society and how much negotiation has to happen. It's been almost ten years of lawlessness and killing zombies, that messes with a person.”

George nodded solemnly. “I was trying to remind them what we're doing all this negotiating for when this group started up. We have talker representatives in the discussions, I made sure of that. But they don't care. When I tried to talk to them, they said they would only talk to you.”

“Me? Why?”

“I don't know. But she's the leader,” she said, pointing at a woman standing in the middle of the talker circle, chanting the loudest. She had long black hair pulled back in a tight braid that highlighted the ear and part of her cheek missing from the right side of her face. “When we met her name was Yuna, but now she wants to be called Ikiryō.”

“She ever cause any trouble before?”

“No. She's been with us for over a year. Turned talker just after the Black Rain when none of us knew what the heck was happening and the zombies were smarter all of a sudden. The group she came in with all turned. There were five of them but two of them experienced final death in Pacifica. The other two are there with Ikiryō.” George pointed to two men, also sporting obvious wounds. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, she doesn't seem dangerous. Let me talk to her alone first, see what they want. In the meantime, see if you can disperse the crowd some, I don't like this many unknowns around.” 

George nodded and gestured at some of the Altura security, heading into the crowd to talk to the bystanders while Warren pushed through the talker circle. 

“Lieutenant Warren,” Ikiryō said, her face calm. 

“Ikiryō. What's happening here?”

“We are protesting the injustices the humans have done to us since the Black Rain.” 

Warren eyed the shifting crowd, found George in a small pocket, trying to talk people away. “Don't we have the constitutional congress to talk about those things?”

“They don't listen to talkers. Not like you do.” 

“What does that mean?”

“We heard what you did at Limbo, scaring the hate group away. We know you would understand because of what you are.”

“Black?” Warren said sarcastically. 

“Dead.” Warren frowned. She hadn't been keeping it a secret, exactly, but she hadn't been shouting it to the world either. “Not talker, but not human either. Both from what we hear, which means you can bridge both worlds.” 

The heavy weight of responsibility made Warren's shoulders tense. “I don't want to be anybody's bridge. Talk to George, she'll listen to you.” 

“George doesn't think I should be able to wear my death marks proudly.” 

“That doesn't sound like her.”

“She asked talker representatives at the congress to cover up their wounds because it was making the humans uncomfortable.”

Warren frowned, found George again in the thinning crowd, successfully ushering more people back inside. “There must have been a misunderstanding.”

“You can ask her yourself. All we want is to be free to be our full selves in public. I shouldn't have to hide my face like Pandora. The poor woman was forced to wear a human mask to fit in, but we should be welcomed no matter what we look like.” 

“Okay first of all, Pandora was a murderous liar who happily tortured both Dante and George. Second of all, she wore that mask because she wanted to, no one made her.”

Ikiryō laughed bitterly. “No one forced it on her, no, but do you think she would have become Estes' right-hand woman without it?”

“Don't use Estes as a judge of all humanity. He's no better than she was.”

“He's human.” The way she spit it out made Warren's skin prickle. “Humans see us like mad dogs they have to medicate to keep from killing everyone. You've heard the anti-talker groups.”

“I have,” Warren admitted. “But there's a lot more people who are fighting for talkers.” The crowd had almost entirely dissipated now, and Ikiryō's talkers slowed to a stop. The quiet echoed around them. 

“Who else came to help you when you faced down the anti-talkers in Limbo? Any humans?” Ikiryō smiled when Warren remained silent. “I thought so.” She turned to her group. “We've made our point. Go about the rest of your evening, my talker brothers and sisters. Wear your death marks with pride!” The group cheered and headed back to their homes in Altura. Ikiryō turned back to Warren. “Humans must learn to truly accept us, accept that we are what they will become. They will see what it's like to be gifted with such a blessing.”

“A blessing?” Warren would have called it a curse, this empty shell she walked around in. 

Ikiryō folded her hands in front of her like she was praying. “You haven't fully realized your power yet,” she said gravely. “Although I see by the holes in your jacket you are learning. Someday you will embrace it, and when you do, you will see. What we are, what you are, is stronger than the humans can even imagine. If they knew, they'd see their fear was correct, but for all the wrong reasons.”

“We're all human. We're no better or worse than each other,” Warren protested.

Ikiryō just smiled, a peaceful, knowing curve of her mouth that struck Warren in her bones. 

“I'll talk to George,” Warren said. “We'll talk about the death marks and make sure the talker representatives feel welcomed. But no special treatment for anyone. The only bridge I'm interested in building is the one that brings Newmerica together.” 

“You better hurry, Lieutenant Warren, or we'll build it for you, and you won't like where ours leads.” She left Warren standing alone on the trampled grass, until George hurried to Warren's side once more. 

“Well?” George said, “did she tell you what she wanted?”

Warren watched Ikiryō talk to one of the talkers in the distance, saw them look back at Warren and George before disappearing inside. “She wanted the impossible.”

“A new constitution?”

“A new world.”

**********

“I didn't think it would upset them so much,” George said later after the curious crowds had gone back to their homes. She, Warren, and Addy were seated around a table in the back of the cafeteria. Warren's back hurt where the bullet still stuck in her was grinding into bone. She needed to see a medic, but they had to deal with this first.

“Did you even think about it at all?” Addy asked sharply. 

George's brow furrowed. “I did. I should have talked to him first, I guess, instead of just asking him straight away to cover up.” 

“Yeah, you should have.” Addy pushed the hair back from the right side of her face, exposing the scarred skin where her eye had been. 

“So we learned that lesson,” Warren said quickly, “but there's a lot of anger out there, and not just the talkers. I've seen the anti-talker groups myself, they aren't likely to just fade away.”

“I heard you scared them away from Limbo,” Addy said, punching Warren lightly on the shoulder. “Good job.”

Warren tried to look pleased. “Feels like people are hearing a lot of things about me lately.” 

“You mean the being dead thing?” George asked. “Altura's like any small town, news gets around.”

“I don't appreciate being gossiped about.”

“People are fascinated by the hero of Altura.”

“The what now?” 

George beamed. “You hadn't heard that?” 

“She's been telling everybody it was you who saved the day with Estes,” Addy said, pointing at George. Warren glared at George, who looked sheepish.

“You did!” George said. 

“You're the one who stopped Pandora.”

“Yeah but Estes was the mastermind, it meant a lot more. Besides, everything you've done since you got here? You're the only reason I could go on sometimes. You're _my_ hero, Warren.”

Warren shoved her chair back from the table, stood. “I don't want to be anyone's hero.” 

“I'm sorry,” George said, grabbing her wrist. It took all of Warren's self-control not to fight back, felt the siren call of anger in her heart. George must have seen it, too, because she let go, hands held out. “I'm sorry,” she said again, slowly, sincerely. “I didn't know it would upset you. I'll stop.”

And like that, the anger was gone, swallowed into the emptiness. Warren pressed her hands against the table and hung her head. “I'm just tired,” she said. She could feel Addy and George exchanging significant looks.

“Why don't you get some rest?” Addy said. “We can talk about this tomorrow.” 

“No, we need to figure something out now. But no more hero stuff.” Warren slumped back into her chair. 

“I swear,” George said. 

“So you've got the anti-talkers and Ikiryō and her group. Addy, what have you heard from the rest of the talkers?”

“Most of them are just happy to be out of containment and with their families again. Pandora's name keeps coming up, though.”

“Like with Ikiryō,” Warren said. 

Addy nodded. “Seems like some talkers think she was on the right track with how little she cared about her humanity. Hell they think she didn't go far enough and talkers should embrace their zombie side more.”

George's eyes narrowed. “Why haven't you said anything before now? We have to stop that.”

“You can't stop the inevitable,” Addy said, shrugging nonchalantly. “And inevitably humans are going to be real dicks about the talkers. I don't blame some of them for not wanting to have to suck up to you all.” 

George leaned forward, hands curled into fists on the table. “If you're encouraging them-”

“What, you'll put me in quarantine, too?”

“Cut it out,” Warren said loudly, and both women – blend and human – looked her way. “We're on the same side here. We all want to make Newmerica work, for humans and talkers to have the same shot at a life in this mess of a world.” 

George's hands relaxed and she sighed. “You're right. Sorry.”

Addy crossed her arms over her chest and Warren shot her a stern look. “Oh all right, I'm sorry, too,” Addy muttered. 

“Good enough. Now: what are we going to do about all of it? The anti-talkers, Ikiryō and the Pandora followers, the rest of us in the middle. How do we make all this work?”

“The anti-talkers have to be stopped first,” Addy said. 

“The Pandora followers are a more immediate threat,” George countered. 

“To humans, maybe.” 

“Pandora killed Dante,” George rasped. “If they're like her, they'll be a threat to anyone who doesn't do what they want.”

“And Estes tried to shoot Warren when he thought she was human. There are more humans than talkers right now, and most talkers just want to fit in. Anti-talkers have already gone looking for a fight.”

“And Ikiryō and her group weren't?”

“They were protesting!” Addy exclaimed. “Since when is protesting a crime?”

“You heard what Warren said, she threatened Newmerica.”

Warren sighed. Maybe Newmerica was too big of a dream after all. “Both groups are out there and they both have the potential to threaten Newmerica,” she said. “We can't afford a war between them, especially if it involves us; we're barely keeping the outposts together as it is. We could try to exile both groups from Newmerica, but that would put most people in the field protecting the outposts until we were sure they were gone.”

“It's no way to start a new country,” George said. 

“Begin as you mean to go on?” Warren asked. 

George nodded. “There's been too much violence to get here. No more. We have to convince the Pandora talkers and the anti-talker humans that they're the same. That there's no reason for arrogance or fear.”

“That we're all people.”

“Exactly.”

“How do we do that? An exchange program?” Addy asked, voice dripping sarcasm. 

George smiled slowly. “That's not a bad idea.” 

“Are you serious?”

“Sure.” George bit her bottom lip, was quiet for a few seconds. “Not swapping people and making them live amongst each other's groups, but bringing them together for a common goal. The more talkers and anti-talkers interact, the more they'll see they're the same. And if we bring them together for a-a conference to discuss the issues, we could work something out.” 

“A conference. Will there be complimentary pens?” Addy asked dryly. 

“It's a chance for anti-talkers to tell us their fears so we can address them, and for the Pandora talkers to see that they need humans so they don't turn into zombies.” 

“They can get their own brains just fine.” 

“Not if they're not part of Newmerica they can't,” George said, her voice dark. “If we exile them, they'll be fine for awhile, but the brains will run out and then it won't matter how superior they think they are. Besides, they'll never get a cure if they can't be a part of our society.”

“I don't think they want a cure,” Warren said. 

George's brow furrowed. “How can they not want a cure?”

“See, that is exactly the problem,” Addy said. “You assume being human is better.”

“Better than having to eat brains to not become a monster? Absolutely!”

“You think they're monsters?”

“STOP IT,” Warren shouted, slamming her fist on the table, making the two women jump. “If we can't even stop arguing amongst ourselves, how can we convince everyone else to get along?”

“That's what the conference is for,” George said after a few seconds. “The representatives here are talking about how to build laws for the new world, but we're skirting around the issues of how to live together, what it means to be a talker and a human. This conference can be for that.”

“But with the most extreme sides of that argument. Seems like a foolproof plan,” Addy said. 

George glared at her. “Do you have a problem with me?” 

“Maybe I do.”

“Maybe you two should take this out in the sparring ring,” Warren said. “ _After_ we're done here.”

Addy gave George an appreciative once over. “I could use something to punch. It's been awhile.”

“I'd like to see you try,” George said, and the two women stared at each other with electric intensity. That was gonna end in something, Warren thought, and it probably wasn't fighting.

“What if this conference idea doesn't work out?” Warren asked. 

“Then they can't stay,” George said firmly. “If they won't see reason, they have no place here.” 

“I don't know why you think any of them will,” Addy muttered. 

Warren thought of the anti-talker group she'd ambushed, of the man who had paused to listen to her. Maybe there were some amongst both groups and it would be enough. Their only other option was too ugly to consider right now. “How do we get the right people to show up?” 

“I don't know. We'll have to convince both groups it's in their own best interest, and use the best messengers to tell them. You should talk to Ikiryō, Warren. I can go to the anti-talkers.”

“They won't listen to you, they think you're biased,” Addy said. Warren considered who the anti-talkers would trust enough to even listen to the plan, let alone get them to participate. 

“What about Estes?” George said.

“Estes?” Addy scoffed. “No way.” 

“He believed in Newmerica once. If his concern was really about too many talkers, we have the cure now, and can find a way to supplement the power before it runs out. He's got no choice but to see talkers are worth saving.”

“He shot me six times,” Warren forced out through clenched teeth. 

George held her hands in front of her, a placating gesture that just annoyed Warren. “I know. And we're not forgiving him any of that. But we don't have a lot of options here. I don't want anyone else dying if we can avoid it. Let's bring the anti-talkers we can convince together with Ikiryō's talkers and show them a better way.”

“But Estes?” Warren said. 

“Who else will they listen to?”

“Why would he do it?”

“I'm going to appeal to his ego,” George said. “I know Estes well enough for that.”

“You also know he worked for Zona and had some grand plan called Final Mercy,” Warren reminded her. “And we still don't know what that is.” 

“Then maybe this will be a chance to get it out of him. He's not gonna tell us stuck in that makeshift cell.”

“If you set Estes free, he'll just leave. Good riddance to him if he does but I don't like not knowing where he is,” Addy said. 

“10k and Doc will go with him,” George said. “And I'll follow behind, in case there's trouble.”

“Don't you have a country to run?” Addy asked. 

“I'm tired of politics,” George whined. “I need to get out of here for a bit.”

“You're the only one holding them together. You have to stay, George. Let Doc and 10k handle escorting Estes, Addy and Red can follow behind as back-up,” Warren said. 

George grimaced and plucked at a crumb on the table, and Warren knew she'd stay even though she yearned to go. That weight had been an anchor lodged in Warren's back for years as firmly as the anti-talker's bullet, and she hated seeing it now in George's. But leaders didn't get the same choices or chances as everyone else. Their burdens were theirs alone, carried out of duty and belief and love. 

“So we're doing this?” Warren asked. George and Addy nodded. “The last question then is where.”

“I have an idea,” George said, “but we're going to need your help with that.”


	8. Chapter 8

“I am not hosting the Real Word: Zompocalypse,” Murphy protested the next day when Warren asked him about it. “Forget it!” 

She'd shown up at Limbo this time looking more anxious than annoyed, and Murphy had been sure they were about to have A Talk about what had happened between them yesterday. Even as relieved as he was that she wanted something entirely different, there was no way he'd invite that kind of trouble into his place. 

“You'd rather the anti-talkers just keep harassing you?” she asked. 

“I'd rather they harass someone else.” 

“Murphy.” She took a sip of her expensive wine. He'd brought it out of storage for her as soon as the blends had told him she was here. The brief flash of pure delight on her face when she'd seen it had made his whole body flush with pride. Now her delight had been replaced by the far more common bemused disappointment. 

“It's a bad idea to try to bring those two groups together. The anti-talkers should be run out of town entirely.”

“And the Pandora followers?”

“They're not entirely wrong.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he shrugged. “You'll see, once you get used to being dead. There are a lot of advantages.”

“That's what Ikiryō said, too.” 

“Pandora was awful, but she was effective. You wouldn't have been able to take on that whole anti-talker group on your own if you'd been alive. She knew the freedom in that.”

“Why aren't you out there fighting more, then?”

Murphy lifted one of his finely manicured brows. “Too messy.” It was only partially true, but Warren laughed a little so he pressed it. “I mean look at these clothes, it would be a crime to get them dirty. No laundromats in the apocalypse.”

“Well George still wants to try this first. No violence.” 

Murphy scoffed. “That's not likely.” 

Warren lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Unless you want a war, we have to try.”

There was always profit in war if you were smart enough, but Warren would be in the thick of any fighting and she deserved some peace for once. “Why Estes? I'm not letting that asshole within a hundred feet of Limbo.” 

“He's the only human we know that the anti-talkers will listen to who we also have leverage over.” 

Murphy leaned against the wall and stared out the window. It was quiet outside, had been quiet since Warren had chased the anti-talkers away. “They're not going to magically change their minds just because they suddenly know a few talkers, or did President Delusion not study the Civil Rights Movement?” 

“She's an optimist.” 

“She's gonna get us all killed.” He sighed. “How long is this conference?”

“She's hoping she can keep them together four days.”

“ _Four days_? You want me to shut down Limbo that whole time? Do you know how much I would lose?”

“Newmerica will reimburse you.”

“I'll believe that when I see actual bullets and bizkits. What would they even do here?”

“Work out their problems. Maybe engage in some friendly team-building competitions.” 

Murphy grimaced. “Sounds boring.” 

“Could go either way,” Warren said, sipping her wine. “Could end in blood.” 

“I'm not cleaning it up if it does.” He took a drink, the wine sliding smooth down his throat. He wondered what it would taste like on Warren's lips. 

“I'll be here, too, the whole time.” She glanced up at him, and Murphy felt his heart speed up. It would be absurd to agree to this just to have Warren near. 

“Four days, huh?” She nodded, something warm but uncertain in her eyes. “You're not gonna let me say no, are you?”

Warren relaxed again, smiled at him in answer, and he wondered why he'd even bothered to argue. Murphy topped up both of their wine glasses and toasted her sarcastically. “Fine. But I'm not feeding them.” 

“All we'll need is a place for everyone to stay. George will take care of everything else.”

“That better include staff. I'm sending my blends away, too.” 

“What? Why?”

“I don't want them to get hurt when this goes bad. As I'm sure it will.”

“With that attitude maybe you shouldn't host it.” 

He knew she was kidding, but his heart raced anyway at the thought of losing this chance. “I'll manage,” he said, his mouth dry. He downed his full glass in a few hurried gulps, found Warren staring at him in horror after. 

“Did you even taste that?”

“It's wine, Warren, not ambrosia.” 

“Then I'll take this off of your uncaring hands,” she said, grabbing the bottle and tucking it in her arm like a baby. “You just ignore him, you're perfect,” she cooed at it. Murphy shook his head, felt himself smile in an entirely too smitten way. 

“Why didn't George come with you?” he asked suddenly, the words leaping out before he could stop them.

“I thought you'd be more likely to listen if she wasn't here, too.” 

He looked down at his empty glass and tried to sound uninterested as he asked, “is that the only reason you came alone?” 

She was quiet so long he glanced over at her, found her twisting the bottle in her hands. “I should get back and tell George the plan is on. We need to talk to Estes and Ikiryō next, convince a small group of each to come with us. That will give you a day or two to get Limbo cleared out and ready.” She was all business again, and he felt something tighten in his gut. 

“What do you think of the whole idea?”

“I think I'm tired of fighting,” she said quietly. “May as well try talking.” 

“Even with Estes?” Warren went still, and he had his answer. “You know you don't have to be here during this.” He hated suggesting it, but her eyes were so full of storms right now he couldn't keep quiet. “We can take care of it without you.” That was a lie, but it was worth a shot.

“Are you trying to protect me or Estes?”

“I don't give a shit about Estes.” 

She smiled a little, a brief pull of her lips upward that felt like he'd done something important. “I'll be here,” she said. “And you can find ways to keep me busy so I don't get in trouble.” 

Murphy grinned slyly, “I'm sure I can think of something.” 

“Murphy-”

“Cleaning,” he interrupted, wondering if he'd pushed too far, not sure if the last time had been the only time or the first. “I was thinking cleaning.”

She set the bottle down, licked her lips. “I wasn't.” She stood up from her bar stool and took slow steps towards him. It felt like time stretched out as he watched her walk, hips swaying. Her dark hair flowed in loose waves, her black shirt pulled tight over her chest. His body pulsed in time with her every step nearer. She stopped inches from him, stared up. “You're so tall,” she said, like it was a surprise. 

“My whole life.” 

“I'm just not used to seeing you like this, I guess.” Her fingers curled around the lapels of his suit jacket. 

“Not when you're not also threatening to beat me up, no.” 

Warren snorted, smoothed her hands over his chest and then gripped his bright white tie and yanked his mouth down to hers. When he'd put the tie on this morning, he'd thought of her with her white hair. Now he'd think of the way it felt kissing her: the press of her full lips, the acid bite of the wine that tasted even better on her tongue. She nipped his bottom lip hard enough to sting, and he moaned and slid his hands over her ass, lifting her a little and holding her against him, palming her smooth curves and solid muscle.

She broke the kiss and slipped her hand between them, rubbing his already hard dick through his pants. “If you're not busy right now...” she breathed. 

“I've got some time,” he gasped as she squeezed. If George Clooney himself had shown up at Murphy's door in that moment, he would've made the man wait. Warren stepped back enough to start undoing her belt and Murphy hesitated. “I do have a bed, you know, and there's no door over there.” 

She kept at it, her buckles clinking. “Here works just fine.” He watched her fingers nimbly undo the button and zipper on her pants, tug the tight fabric down and off. When she straightened, her mouth made a perfect bow of annoyance. He wondered what she'd do if he kissed her first this time. “I didn't mean a solo show, Murphy.”

“Right,” he said, hurriedly undoing his pants. He actually had underwear on today, silk boxers that were cool against the hot skin of his thighs. He dropped them on the floor on top of his pants, and he stepped towards Warren, picking her up and pressing her against the wall. 

“Not even going to take my shirt off?” she asked, her legs wrapping tight around his waist.

“Don't need to,” he said, sinking into her. She was already wet, as he knew she would be, but the way she eagerly clung to him, like he was something she desperately wanted, made him unsteady. He kissed the side of her neck, sucked hard at her earlobe as he moved in slow strokes inside her, centering himself again. Warren's breath was loud in his ear and hot on his cheek as she gasped and moaned. Murphy closed his eyes and gave himself over to the feel of her pressed against him while he slowly fucked her against the wall. The sun beamed in through the window, warming his side, but Warren was hotter still as he slid in and out, an easy rhythm that she met with the matching movement of her hips. He kneaded her ass, his knuckles scraping the wood of the wall, and smelled the tang of her sweat. With his eyes closed he could feel her in his head and beyond; the bond that had pulled him halfway across the country to find her pulling him deeper still. 

Her hands gripped his shoulders hard, and she writhed against him like she was trying to sink further onto him even when there was no more he could give. He sped up instead and she made a pleased sound high in her throat. Murphy wanted to carry her up to his bed just like this and take his time with her. He wanted to see just how much she felt of him in return; he wanted to find out what sounds she made when he kissed her hipbones and the inside of her elbows. But she was taut and desperate, fingernails in his back and that same aching need from last time, so he shifted his feet, placed one hand on the wall and thrust deep and fast while her high-pitched breaths dropped into a low, long, full-body moan as she went tight around him. He imagined one of his blends walking by the open door, seeing them like this, watching him fuck her, watching the way her face transformed in orgasm. Murphy groaned into the curve of Warren's neck as he let go, overwhelmed, before stuttering to a stop, his rapid breathing matching hers. When he glanced back, the doorway was empty. 

Warren shifted and unwound her legs, so he set her down. 

“I can't remember the last time I had sex against the wall,” she said, panting and moving away from his loose grip. She pulled her underwear and pants on while he did the same and tried to think of what to say. Of all the ways she undid him, his loss for words unnerved him most. It felt like if he said anything, he would say everything, and whatever uncertain thing was happening between them here would be broken. The walls he had built and fortified would be broken, too, and the apocalypse was too dangerous to live in unprotected. 

Warren picked up the bottle and looked at him expectantly, though he had no idea what she wanted from him, had no idea what he could offer her even if he knew. 

“A couple days then?” he said, straightening his tie. 

She looked down at her feet and he almost bit his own tongue to keep from asking to go with her, or asking her to stay with him forever and ruin his carefully constructed life. “If the plan changes, we'll let you know,” she said, saving him from himself. Wesson walked in with his usual bright smile. 

“Ms Warren!” 

Warren gave him a friendly smile that barely reached her eyes. “How are you, Wesson?”

“Excellent, thank you. Am I interrupting?”

“No, we're done.” She patted the bottle. “Taking my loot and running.” She squeezed Wesson's arm as she left and Murphy imagined he could feel it on his own. 

“It's time to go tour progress at the new facility,” Wesson started, his smile faltering as he looked at Murphy. “Is everything okay boss?” 

“It's fine,” Murphy lied. “Everything is fine.”


	9. Chapter 9

Warren convinced herself it was better by far that Murphy let her go. She had work to do and she'd been feeling uncomfortably vulnerable back there. Now that they had to deal with this next crisis, there was no time for more than casual sex followed by a swift and uncomplicated retreat. 

_It's better this way_ , she repeated, holding it like a protective ward. But though she'd felt that same roaring life when she was with Murphy, out here – all the way back to Altura and her room – she felt only cold and confused. She should stop having sex with him if it was going to leave her this off-balance and uncertain afterward. If she needed sex to feel better, she could try one of Murphy's blends instead. Or Cooper. She wondered what Cooper had been doing since the election, if he'd harvested his food, if he'd thought of her. After the conference she could go see him, see if there was some space she could settle in in his hidden away world that would be enough. 

There was a knock at her door and she opened it, half-expecting to see Cooper appear, but it was Ikiryō, calm and collected. “I heard you wished to speak with me?”

Warren had stopped to let George know Murphy had agreed before quickly excusing herself, letting the other woman handle the next steps with Estes. She'd wanted nothing more now than her room and the quiet of sleep, but the things she wanted always seemed just out of step with reality. 

“You hear a lot of things,” Warren said, gesturing Ikiryō into the room. “But you're right.” 

Ikiryō's eyes trailed over the sparse accommodations, the simple bed, single bright lamp, and generic painting of a flower on the wall. “You like flowers, Lieutenant?”

“I haven't had a lot of time to decorate since we arrived. Been kind of busy.” 

“Mm. I used to love to decorate when I was a human.”

“You can still decorate now.”

“I could. But why, when I am so much more than useless surface now?”

The conversation already felt out of Warren's hands; she struggled to bring it back. “You know talkers can't survive without humans.” 

“I don't know that at all. Bizkits and lithium keep us sharp, but there are also plenty of brains in the apocalypse.” 

“And when winter comes and you've spent all your time getting food, where are you going to hide from the cold? I don't see any talker groups out there building anything.”

“Perhaps we will take over Altura,” Ikiryō said, smiling beatifically. 

“War in the winter. Sounds like a bad idea.” 

“That's because you think humans are a threat.”

“You lost two of your friends to final death because of the Pacifica bombers, so you know that they are.” 

The smooth skin around Ikiryō's left eye crinkled in anger. “What's your point?”

“It makes more sense for talkers and humans to work together than fight each other.”

“I fail to see how.”

“That's what we want to show you. We want to bring five people from your group and five of the anti-talkers together to work out our differences.”

Ikiryō chuckled. “Idealistic nonsense.” 

“Bridge-building,” Warren reminded her. “Even Pandora loved a human.” 

Ikiryō's dismissive smile slipped, and revealed enough uncertainty underneath that Warren suddenly had hope that George's idea might work. “Will the anti-talker group even listen?”

“They'll show up,” she said, putting her faith in George's ability to convince Estes to do this for them. “And the meeting will be at Limbo, so no one has home field advantage.”

“Limbo,” Ikiryō murmured. “The Big Red One saved talkers during the recent problems. Risked everything to save a talker child I heard.” 

“He what?” Warren said, startled. Why hadn't she heard that? Why hadn't Murphy himself bragged about it for days? 

“If he will be there, and you, I will bring four of my people to hear more about your bridge.” 

“We'll be there,” Warren promised. “Have your group ready to leave the day after tomorrow. Early. I want us to be on the road by sunup.” 

“Eager to get started?”

“If it avoids war, yes. You should be, too.” 

“I believe this will be a very interesting experiment, Lieutenant. And you will learn a lot about what it is to be dead.”

Warren grabbed Ikiryō's arm as she turned to go, ignoring the irritated frown on the other woman's face. “If you don't give this a real chance, none of you will be walking out of Limbo,” she warned. Unexpectedly, Ikiryō laughed, a tinkling sound that filled up the corners of Warren's bare room. “Why are you laughing?” Warren asked uneasily. 

“Because you are already learning.” Ikiryō tugged out of Warren's grip and left only the dark shadow of her words behind.


	10. Chapter 10

Murphy spent the next two days playing his personal version of The Game, except he lost every time he thought about Warren. Which meant he was losing at least once an hour. 

He busied himself during the wait by heading to the bakery Marion used to run and checking the progress the blends were making in turning it into a production facility for the zombie virus cure. Murphy had taken a few more bites of Sun Mei's brain, was certain they could replicate what she had done, but it would take time and somewhere decidedly not Limbo. So he claimed the bakery as his own and no one seemed to mind if they even noticed at all. The blends would be staying here while Limbo was shut down for the meeting, and Murphy wanted them to use that time to get the facility well under way. After all this was through, he'd spend some quality time with Sun Mei's brain and the cure, but for now the brain was tucked safely away in his room where even the blends couldn't find it. 

He left the blends at the bakery-turned-lab, Wesson and Melody kissing him goodbye and holding tight to his arms. “It'll be fine,” he reassured them. “There will be lots of other people there who will jump in front of bullets if things go wrong.” 

“I don't like leaving you unprotected,” Wesson said worriedly. 

“I won't be unprotected, Warren will be there.” 

Wesson's creased brow smoothed and he smiled. “She will? Oh that's great news, boss. We know she'll take care of you like always.” 

“I take care of her sometimes, too,” Murphy said, annoyed at the high-pitched whine of his own voice. Even the blends didn't look like they believed him. “I found her in the middle of the country!” 

“Of course you did,” Wesson said soothingly. “She's lucky to have you.” 

Murphy grumbled and shook off the blends to head back to Limbo. The last of late summer had finally given way to fall and raindrops splattered his windshield on the drive. He didn't know how long fall was in Canada, but he expected things to start turning cold quicker than he liked. Altura representatives had sent out some materials about winter preparation, which he'd put somewhere he couldn't remember now. They'd have to deal with that, too, make sure Limbo was ready for the freezing Canadian winter. Newmerican winter, he amended. It still felt weird on the tongue, the idea of it weird in his head. They were all fighting hard for an idea that Murphy wasn't convinced would even work. But Warren believed it, and if Warren believed in it, he had her back.

Limbo was dark and silent when he trudged back through the pouring rain after parking. “Honey I'm home,” he called to the empty halls. Even the zombies they used for different games had been moved somewhere else. He was the only thing here, living or dead. He hadn't spent much time alone for more than a decade, since he'd been thrown in prison before the apocalypse even started. He hated hearing only his own thoughts echoing in the lonely rooms. 

But he wasn't totally alone. He closed his eyes and concentrated, could feel Warren's presence out in the world somewhere, the calm certainty that she was still around, like a warm light in a distant house, reminding you you weren't on your own. This must have been how Addy had felt when she'd been separated from Lucy. He could imagine how unutterably dark it would seem to have that light go out for good. 

Murphy cleaned up Limbo and thought about Addy, about Doc's hurt eyes, 10k's angry face. George had sent a message telling him they'd be coming, too, which meant Murphy's absurd hope of avoiding them all for the rest of their lives was not to be. And that left only the reality of what he had done and what he could do to make up for it. 10k would never forgive him, he'd resigned himself to that. He wouldn't forgive him either, if the situation was reversed. But he'd want the other person to feel bad about it, want him to know how awful he'd been, and Murphy had that part down pat now. The ghost of what he'd done to 10k had been in the mirror every time he looked, reminding him that this business couldn't remain unfinished forever. This week had opportunity all over it: to show Warren she could rely on him, to show Doc that his regret was genuine, to show Addy and 10k he'd do what it took to not hurt the kid again. And maybe at the end of it all, things would have changed for the better. 

“Anything's possible,” Murphy muttered into the darkness, not believing it. 

He poured himself a drink, ate a bite of leftover brain, and sat in the middle of Limbo, alone and not alone, waiting for the others to arrive.


	11. Chapter 11

Warren, Ikiryō, and Ikiryō's four chosen talkers arrived at Limbo before noon. It was raining again, and Warren was glad for the van she'd commandeered instead of the motorbike. The drive had been mostly quiet; Warren had little to say to Ikiryō and the talkers, and they only occasionally murmured to each other in voices lost to the chug of the biodiesel engine. She considered turning on the radio, seeing if Channel Z was back to broadcasting, but it felt too light-hearted for what they were heading to do. Tension had been a constant companion for the last day and a half as the final details of the conference were worked out. Estes had been successful in convincing the anti-talkers to send representatives, too, and they'd agreed to show up around the same time. From what Doc had told her, he'd convinced them by saying all of Altura was against the anti-talkers now and this was their chance to make their case where they might be heard. Warren didn't trust any of it, but the cards had been dealt and all they could do now was play the hand. 

Limbo's bland outer building rose out of the rain, and Warren pulled up near the front sliding door, parked, and stared at the talkers in her mirror. There was Ikiryō and the two men from the protests, as well as two women Warren didn't recognize. They all had obvious wounds, worn proudly: Ikiryō with her missing right ear and cheek; one of the men had multiple bite marks on his neck and arms while the other man wore shorts to show off his mangled leg; both of the women had multiple wounds in their backs and sides they highlighted with crop tops. When Warren had asked them if they were cold, they just stared in silent judgment and climbed into the van. 

They got out now just as silently, followed her to Limbo's door where she knocked three times, paused, then twice more quickly. A moment later the door slid open and there was Murphy, dressed in blue jeans and a bright white t-shirt with a blue button-up shirt hanging loose over top of it. His hair was casual, flopping over one eye like when he'd found her at Cooper's farmhouse. He smiled at her and she felt an unexpected twist in her heart, and a now entirely expected heat in her belly. 

“Welcome to Limbo,” he said, throwing open the door so everyone could come in. “Don't mess anything up.” That was directed at the talkers, who ignored it and walked inside. Murphy leaned against the doorway, gestured for Warren to enter. 

“No suit today?” she asked.

“Power move,” he said. “If I'd been formal, they would think I cared about impressing them.” 

“I like it,” Warren said, moving past him and looking around. “Everything ready?” It was mostly empty in the room now, all of the normal Limbo offerings moved to the sides and covered. 

Murphy slid the door shut again and Warren blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light coming in through just the windows. “As ready as can be expected,” he said, standing just behind her. She felt a sudden urge to lean back against him, have him wrap his arms around her. Warren took a step further from him to combat it, marched around the room examining every nook and cranny to keep it at bay. It was his outfit, that was all. It reminded her of their time on the road back from Cooper's together, when Murphy had been the easiest to be with he'd ever been and she'd found herself late one calm night over a small fire wondering if they should really go to Newmerica at all. They hadn't run into any zombies, Murphy had been kind to her about Cooper, and life had, like those precious weeks at the farmhouse, been simple. 

The talkers stood in the middle of the room, silent but not uncomfortable. They acted like they were welcoming Murphy to their space. 

“Are the others here yet?” she asked Murphy from safely across the room. 

“No. They can check out the rooms while we wait. Each group gets a single large room. We shoved enough beds in each one so they'll all have a space to sleep. The rooms are on different floors, though, just in case.” 

“You don't believe this will be successful,” Ikiryō said, a statement not a question. 

“It doesn't matter what I believe, it matters what you and your talker friends do.” He looked at Warren. “Doc and the others have bunk beds in a room on this floor.”

“And me?”

“Not enough space, so you get your own room,” he said, in a voice that suggested he'd be happy to keep her company in it. Warren glanced at Ikiryō, found her watching them curiously. 

“I can sleep on the floor with Doc and the others,” she said. “I'm used to his snoring.” 

Murphy frowned a little, but shrugged. “Suit yourself, but the room is yours if you want it. It's the one from the other day.” He turned to the talkers. “Follow me, I'll show you where your space is.” He set off without even looking to see if they would follow, she suspected as a gambit to show he was in charge here. The talkers didn't move until he'd disappeared through a doorway and then, apparently realizing he wasn't about to wait for them, they followed. 

Warren meandered to the doorway, heard Murphy's voice floating down from the stairwell they'd gone up. “-for the five of you. If you have any stuff to store,” there was a pause, “never mind. George sent bizkits, they're in the kitchen downstairs, big blue door by Hit-the-head. Eat what you want, but that's all we've got, and if you run out, you can't stay here any longer. Owner's prerogative.” Warren could hear the smirk. “Anti-talkers are on the floor below Limbo in the basement; don't go down there and they won't come up here and everyone will get out alive. Or undead in your case.” 

“You're very funny, Mr. Murphy. I appreciate your acceptance of death,” Ikiryō said. 

“I've had some time.” 

Ikiryō said something that Warren couldn't quite make out, but she heard Murphy's clear response: “Your room, the kitchen, and the main room, that's all you have access to. If I find any of you anywhere else, you're done here.” She heard footsteps, saw Murphy's long legs coming down the stairs so she backed out of the doorway to wait. He emerged alone. 

“Talkative bunch you've got there,” he said. 

“I didn't pick them.”

He moved to the other side of the room, gestured for her to follow. “I don't trust Ikiryō,” he said, his voice quiet. “Something's not right with her.”

“She thinks Pandora didn't go far enough.”

“And we're not just killing her....why?”

“Because killing cult leaders only encourages their followers.”

“And educating cult leaders is a tried and true method, you're right.”

Warren rolled her eyes. “George doesn't care about her. She cares about those four quiet sponges with her and what they'll tell others when they get back to Altura, when they see Ikiryō is wrong.”

“Listen, I know you like George and all, but this is a dumb fucking idea.”

She punched him in the shoulder and he yelped. “Be nice.” 

“I didn't tell _her_ that,” he pouted, rubbing his arm.

“Then continue to keep it to yourself. Focus on the ones who aren't Estes and Ikiryō. Ikiryō's group will listen to you since you're the Big Red One, and the anti-talkers will watch you to shape their opinions of talkers. You're actually an important part of this, not just for Limbo.” 

Murphy straightened proudly. “Well why didn't you say so earlier?”

“Because I didn't want to deal with your puffed up ego,” she said. 

He made a face at her and she grinned. Murphy glanced at the doorway and when he looked back the desire in his eyes burned her. He tugged her jacket, pulling her closer. “You don't have to sleep with Doc and the others,” he murmured, his voice tickling down her spine. “But you don't have to sleep alone, either.” 

She twisted her fingers in his blue over-shirt, the fabric smooth and cool. “We can't. Not during all this.”

He leaned towards her. “I have soundproof walls, no one has to know.” 

“What we're doing, it's a distraction,” she said, and he went still. 

“A distraction?”

“This conference could be what keeps Newmerica from all-out war. We can't afford to focus on anything else.” 

Murphy pulled back and his expression was insincere cheer, the easy warmth of before gone. “I understand,” he said, his voice too-bright. 

Warren furrowed her brow. “Murphy-” There was a knock at Limbo's door and she huffed angrily. “Damn it.”

“Showtime,” he said, smoothing out his shirt where she'd wrinkled it with her grip. He was still for a long moment, and Warren wished she could pause time and tease out whatever it was that was making his eyes glitter like sharp-edged diamonds, but then he moved to the door and threw it open. 

Light and a crowd of humans spilled inside. Doc and 10k were there, as were four humans Warren vaguely recognized, and Estes. Estes looked her way almost immediately and she felt pulsing rage beat in her chest. Her hand went around the hilt of her machete and the half of Estes' face that hadn't been burned went pale. Her world narrowed like a bullseye around Estes; she imagined sinking her blade deep into his soft stomach. 

Murphy cleared his throat loudly and Warren startled. “Welcome to Limbo,” Murphy said, “try not to kill anyone.” That he directed towards her, and she exhaled slowly, forcing her body to relax. 

“Are the talkers here?” Estes asked, looking away from Warren. 

“In their rooms. Your rooms are downstairs in the basement. There's a small kitchen down there for you, too, with a little food. You get the same warning as the talkers: your room and kitchen, and this main area, are where you're allowed. Everywhere else is off-limits and if I find you there, you leave. Whether you leave as a human or not is up to you.” 

The anti-talker humans muttered darkly. 

“Where are Red and Addy?” Warren asked Doc and 10k, ignoring the others. 

“They're coming later, they had some last supplies to get. George wanted us to get these folks here and get them settled,” Doc said. 

Warren considered the group of humans. Besides Estes there were three men and one woman. The woman, Warren realized, was the one whose hand she had stepped on; Linda, she recalled. Linda was wearing a splint on her hand and glaring angrily. Warren was pretty sure the three men were also part of the group she'd attacked. Fantastic. 

“Why is she here?” one of the men said now. His forearm was heavily bandaged. 

“She's here to make sure you don't cause problems,” Murphy said. “Don't be a problem and you won't have to worry about her.”

“She attacked us without provocation!” the woman interjected. 

“You shot me first!”

“You were waving that giant knife at us,” one of the men said. 

Warren unsheathed her machete. “You mean like this?” The anti-talkers all bristled while Estes stood there, smirking. 

Murphy scoffed. “All of you against one woman? Seems like she was right to have her machete.” The anti-talkers deflated a little, although they continued to stare daggers at Warren. She smiled sweetly. 

“This is exactly why none of you were allowed to bring weapons,” Murphy said. “Follow me, you can head down to your room and cool off.” 

But before they could move, the talkers came quietly down the stairs and the tension in the room grew, coiled, a lurking monster eager to pounce. 

“Aren't you going to introduce us first?” Estes asked smugly. 

Ikiryō stepped forward. “We know you already, Roman Estes. And the others as well: Bill, Dev, Linda, Jermaine,” she nodded at each of them and they looked at each other, clearly uncomfortable. 

“You have us at a disadvantage,” Estes said, his lips clenched in a tight smile. 

“It is important we know who wishes us harm.”

“And who are you and your friends? I've been...indisposed.”

Ikiryō smiled, let the question hang in the air long enough that Warren wasn't sure she would actually answer, before finally saying, “You may call me Ikiryō. These others you may call Onza, Caxton, Adze, and Emily.”

“Emily?” Murphy asked.

Ikiryō shrugged. “She hasn't chosen her true name yet.” 

The two groups stared at each other, the silence growing like an uncomfortable weight on all of their shoulders. Warren was ready to threaten someone again just to break the quiet when there was another knock on Limbo's door. 

Murphy shouted, “Come in,” and two people came in through the door but it wasn't Red and Addy. 

“You've gotta be kidding me,” Doc said.

Sketchy and Skeezy stood there, smiling their biggest smiles. “Nice to see you, Murph,” Sketchy said, striding forward and grabbing Murphy's hand to shake. “Been a long time! Look at you! You're red you old son of a gun!” 

“What the hell are you two doing here?” Warren asked. 

“Miss Georgia St. Claire was looking for volunteers to work the human and talker convention happening here and we thought, hell, we're a human and a talker, we'd fit perfectly.” 

“Oh no,” Doc said. “Which one of you is a talker? It's Skeezy, isn't it?”

Skeezy nodded sadly. “Thought I was gone for good and then bam! Came back to life.”

“Gave me quite a scare,” Sketchy said, wagging his finger at his partner. “Fortunately we'd been cutting the hair of the man that killed him so I was able to trim a little extra off the top and get Skeezy some brains to eat.” 

“Yum yum!” Skeezy said happily. 

“You were really doing the barber thing, huh?” Doc asked. 

“We were good at it, too,” Skeezy said. 

“Too good,” Sketchy jumped in. “Had a pretty decent amount of customers once all the toxic foam cleared out. Turns out a local Albanian gang found out and decided they wanted our earnings for themselves.”

“Almost got them all, too, before they killed me,” Skeezy said.

“I told you you needed to be better with those long razors.” 

“Well excuse me, you were the one in charge of shaving!”

“Enough!” Murphy cut them off. “How did George even find you guys?”

“Oh she didn't,” Skeezy said. 

“Yeah we were down in Plentywood when we heard about it from some folks, decided to offer ourselves and came straight here.”

“Are there others coming?”

“Not likely. Everybody said it would be suicide to come.”

Doc looked confused. “Then why are you here?”

Sketchy and Skeezy exchanged glances. “To help out of course!” Sketchy said, but there was something more suspicious than usual in his gleaming smile. “We need supplies and we're hard workers. It can be an exchange – we butle for each group and you give us some room and board.” 

“Butle?” Doc mouthed and Warren shrugged. 

“I don't have any rooms for you,” Murphy said. 

“We don't need any special accommodations. I can sleep with the humans and Skeezy here can sleep with the talkers. No trouble at all.”

“We don't have enough beds.”

“I'm fine on a floor,” Skeezy said. “Haven't slept in a bed for years.”

“Not even at the barber shop?” Doc asked. 

“Oh no, had a nice hair carpet, slept like a baby.” 

“Don't we get to say anything about this?” Estes broke in. He looked furious, his face tight and red. 

Apparently that was all it took to convince Murphy it was a good idea because he said, “No” and turned to Sketchy. “We'll find a bed for each of you in the common rooms. I was just taking the humans to theirs, you come with me. Skeezy, you're with them.” 

Sketchy grabbed each of the anti-talker's hands, shaking them and saying “Nice to meet you, I'm Sketchy, happy to help you out this week.” They all looked annoyed, disgusted, or both. 

Skeezy went to the talkers but they turned as one and went back to their room without saying anything. Skeezy followed after them like a lost puppy. Doc and 10k joined Warren and together they watched the anti-talkers, Sketchy, and Murphy shuffle downstairs to the basement. 

“Something's not right,” Doc said.

“Agreed,” Warren said. “We have to find out what they're really up to before they ruin everything.”

“Maybe they're telling the truth,” 10k offered. 

“Kid, your fondness for them is sweet but misguided. Those two always have a plan.”

“Doc's right,” Warren said. “But they like you, too, 10k, so you get to find out why they're here.”

“Me?” 10k's head drooped. “Aw man.”


	12. Chapter 12

Murphy left Sketchy with the humans and came back upstairs to find Warren, Doc, and 10k huddled together, talking quietly. When the three looked over he had to fight the urge to look away. There was too good of a chance they were talking about him and what he'd done. He tugged on his shirt and purposefully sauntered over. 

“Doc, 10k,” he said. “Trip went okay?”

“It was fine,” Doc said. 10K just stared at him. 

“Great! That's...that's great.” Murphy pressed his tongue against his teeth, looked around the room, examined his shirt for imaginary dirt. Not even Warren saved him from the awkward silence. “Well, your room is just through that door,” he said. “I've got bunkbeds in there. Plenty of food in the kitchen here, though don't eat the bizkits of course. I just, uh, need to, check on stuff. Feel free to do whatever.” He escaped through the double-doors that led up to his office and rooms, shut the door behind him and exhaled heavily. 

“Perfect start,” he grumbled. There was a tentative knock at his door and though his first instinct was to yell at whoever it was to go away, he realized it was probably Warren. “Come in,” he said instead. 

Doc entered instead, looking nervous. “Hey,” the older man said. 

“Hey.”

“Thanks for doing this. I'm sure you didn't want to.”

“You know how convincing Warren is.”

Doc smiled a little. “Yeah. Chief is something.” He looked around Murphy's room. “Looks like I remember it when we were here last.” 

“It was like a month ago, Doc.”

“I guess it was, wasn't it? Feels longer after...everything.” 

Murphy bit his lip. This felt like an opening, a chance to start trying to make things right. “I was an asshole,” he blurted, and Doc's head jerked back. “To 10k, in Murphytown” Murphy explained. “And, well, lots of other times. But especially then. I think about what I did to him and it just...” he gestured helplessly. “It sucks.” 

“Sucks is putting it mildly.” 

“I know, I know. I'm not good at looking into my own soul here, Doc. It's not a great place to visit. And I know those things I did to him, and to a lot of other people, they're unforgivable. Every time I think about it, I feel like shit. So I'm not asking you to forgive me for them. But I'm still sorry I did them. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner.”

Doc rubbed the back of his neck. “I may be a fool,” he said, “but I believe you. Maybe it's because of the clothes, makes you seem more sincere.”

“I am sincere, but if the clothes help, I'll take it.”

“We can't just immediately be friends again like nothing happened.” 

Murphy hid his disappointment. He'd expected this, but it still hurt. “I figured.” 

“But we can see where we go from here.” Doc held his hand out. “Let's start with a friendly handshake.” 

Murphy took Doc's hand, shook it warmly. “It's a great start.” His eyes were burning, and he had to swallow down the lump in his throat. “Play some cards?”

“Was hoping you'd ask,” Doc said, clapping Murphy on the shoulder. “No cheating though.” 

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Murphy said, discretely dropping off his extra aces on the shelf by the door as they exited the room.


	13. Chapter 13

Warren studied Doc and Murphy when they came back down, was relieved to see Doc was smiling and so was Murphy. She had just hoped Murphy wouldn't screw things up further, and it looked like whatever had happened, he had come through. He was coming through more and more these days, making the empathetic choice instead of just the selfish ones. 

She lifted her eyebrows questioningly at Murphy when Doc turned away and he nodded a little in response. 

“Good job,” she mouthed silently. Murphy beamed at her. 

Murphy produced a deck of cards with a flourish and gestured at an empty table. “We've got some time, anyone want to join us?” 

10k looked at Doc, who shrugged and took a seat. Warren sat down, too, and Murphy took the seat in-between them. None of them pressed 10k, but when Murphy started dealing, 10k quietly came over and sat in the empty seat across from Murphy, staring at the cards Murphy slid efficiently his way and little else. 

The four of them were engaged in their twentieth round of Go Fish, during all of which Murphy did very badly and 10k won constantly, when Red and Addy finally arrived. They each carried a couple of duffel bags that turned out to have extra food, bizkits, and emergency supplies. 

“George was worried about us running out,” Red explained. 

Addy pinned Murphy with a steady, dead-eyed glare so Doc caught them up on room situations and what had happened before they arrived. 

“Who are Sketchy and Skeezy?” Red asked.

“Two grifters,” Murphy said. 

“Old friends,” Doc said at the same time. 

Warren shrugged. “Both, really.”

“What angle are they working?” Addy asked as she flipped a chair around and sat in it in between Doc and 10k. 

“Don't know yet, that's up to 10k to find out.” 

10k nodded unhappily. 

“You'll do great, buddy,” Addy said fake cheerfully. “They love you.” 

“Damn right we do,” Sketchy piped in, suddenly appearing behind Addy, and everyone jumped. 

“Jesus! Don't do that!” Murphy barked. “What is wrong with you?”

“Don't get your zombie heart in a twist, I only heard some of it.” 

“How much?” Warren said.

“Enough to be hurt that Adelaide doesn't trust we're just exploring our new calling as butlers. It's been years and you still don't trust us.” Sketchy clucked his tongue sadly. “And grifters, Murphy? Really?” Murphy shook his head, annoyed. 

“It's Addison,” Addy gritted out between her teeth. “And you two running a scam is the only constant in the apocalypse.”

Sketchy pulled up a chair between Warren and 10k. 10k pulled his arms tight, squished between Addy and Sketchy. “We don't do that stuff anymore, not after Vernon...well you know.” 

“Then why the hell are you here?” Addy asked. “This place is not gonna be a safe one.” 

“A promise,” Sketchy said. “To someone I swear I can't tell you about. But if we do this, that person will give me and Skeezy a safe place and he's already used up his one life.”

“So you want us to let you stay here because some person you can't tell us about wanted you to be here?” Murphy said blandly. 

“Exactly!”

“Sketchy, you're not helping your case,” Doc said. 

“I know, Doc, but I ain't got any other options. Newmerica is a nice idea, but it's still just an idea and that's still an apocalypse out there. After the recent bizkit shortage, Skeezy and I needed to make more long-term plans.” 

“Why are you telling us all this?” Addy asked. 

“So you don't throw us out. Look I know just showing up isn't the best way to get in, but we didn't have a lot of other options. I've found the direct approach works sometimes.” 

“What did the person hire you to do?” Warren asked. 

“I can't tell you that, but I can tell you it won't mess with what you're doing here. So whattya say, team? You're gonna let us stay, right?”

They looked at each other across the table, silently communing, until everyone turned to Warren. As usual, they were leaving it up to her. She sighed. “You can stay, but if you even smell like you're getting in the way, you'll be out of here so fast you'll leave your souls behind.” 

Sketchy swallowed. “Yes ma'am.” 

Skeezy emerged abruptly from the talker room. “Thanks everyone, you won't regret it!” 

“Oh for god's sake,” Murphy groaned. “Will you two stop skulking around? You're making it worse.” 

Sketchy stood, gestured Skeezy over and kissed him soundly while the group gaped. He looked back, confused. “What?”

“I thought the kiss at the barbershop was a ploy,” Doc said. 

“Oh it was,” Skeezy said, wrapping his arm around Sketchy's waist. “But I still meant it. Took me a little while to convince this lughead he meant it, too.” Sketchy smiled bashfully.

“What did I miss while I was gone?” Addy whispered. 

“I'll tell you later,” 10k whispered back. 

Skeezy flashed his left hand, where he had a simple gold band on his left finger. “Even got him to ask me to marry him!”

“You got married?” Doc said. “Congratulations!”

“Not married yet, Doc,” Sketchy said. “Engaged. Haven't exactly had time or means for a real ceremony.”

Warren stood and walked over to them, smiling. “I couldn't imagine either of you with anybody else,” she said, hugging them both. Sketchy lingered a moment too long with his and when she pulled away he smiled sheepishly. 

“Not a married man yet,” he said and Skeezy shook his head. 

“We've talked about this,” Skeezy said. “You know I don't mind even after we're married, just as long as-”

“I come back to your bed, yeah I know. Still getting used to it is all.”

Warren patted Skeezy on the shoulder, glanced back at Murphy and found him staring intensely at her. The air went suddenly thick, and she struggled to catch her breath under the weight of everything in his eyes. She tried to look away, focus on anything but him as the others moved back to their chairs and found space for Skeezy. The promises behind Murphy's stare tempted and terrified her. 

“-going to go?” 

Warren realized Addy had directed the question at her, that everyone was looking at her now, and she rubbed her ear like she could rub away the roaring in her head. “Sorry, what?”

“How is this going to go? This whole shebang.”

“I don't know. George is in charge of that.” 

“She doesn't get here until tomorrow,” Addy said. “What do we do tonight?”

Recovered, ignoring Murphy for safety, she said, “try to keep everybody alive until the morning.” 

“Speaking of which,” Sketchy said. “I should get back, make sure they don't need anything. The more we keep everybody to their respective rooms, the better. Hey Murphy, you got any books or anything for them to do? It's pretty boring down there.”

“If you like old porn mags, then I can help. We've got Hustler, Playboy, Playgirl, Penthouse, Juggs, and Men. Those are the ones I remember at least.” 

“Playboy does have excellent articles,” Skeezy said. “We'll take some of those.” 

Murphy shrugged, disappeared into a back room and returned a few minutes later struggling with a big apple box. Sketchy, Skeezy, and Doc all moved over to paw through the contents. 

“Hey Doc, grab me a Playboy,” Addy called out. “You want one, 10k?”

“A Playboy? No thanks, it sounds like a kid magazine,” 10k said and Skeezy laughed so hard he couldn't speak.

**********

The rest of the afternoon and into late evening passed quietly. Warren was glad for the magazines, did have to admit some of the articles were interesting, especially as relics of a world they could no longer comprehend. She became thoroughly engrossed in a Gore Vidal essay called “Sex Is Politics.” It was a far cry from the romantic poetry Cooper had kept at his home, or the classics at the library in Pacifica. The image of Murphy bringing this box of porn magazines to the Pacifica library to shelve made her laugh a little.

Sketchy and Skeezy appeared occasionally, getting food for their charges or asking for different supplies. The talkers and anti-talkers seemed content to stay to their spacious rooms for the day, giving everyone a breather before things really kicked off. By the time Sketchy and Skeezy both reported their groups were bedding down for the night, Warren had grown almost bored, an unusual feeling in the apocalypse. They'd played endless card games, had each done a perimeter walk around all of Limbo, had checked out their rooms and put their stuff away, and had even broken out the roulette wheel and a round-ish bullet to try their hand at roulette. 

“God I honestly hope we get to fight someone tomorrow,” Addy complained before yawning widely. “I haven't had a day like this since we were first trying to get to California.” 

“Too true, sister.” Warren stretched her arms over her head. “We should set a watch list. There's enough of us we can do one person short watches, hour and a half, two hours max. I can go first.” 

“Eh, that works. I'll go next,” Addy said. 

“What about the rest of you?” 

“You know me, I like last,” Doc said. “Let the younger set split up their night.” 

“I'll go after Addy,” 10k said, volunteering for what they all knew was the hardest watch. Not enough sleep before, too wired to sleep much after for most people. It was the one he often took. 

“I guess I'll go after 10k,” Red said. She'd been quiet most of the day, ignoring Murphy entirely, but not talking much to anyone, even 10k. Addy had pulled her a little out of whatever funk she was in, and they were sitting together now poring over an old gun magazine someone had discovered in Murphy's porn box. 

The others stood, discussed sleeping arrangements to eventually settle on Red and Addy sharing one bunk bed, Doc and 10k in the other, and bid Warren, and in Doc's case Murphy, too, goodnight. Warren rubbed her neck, sat down in one of the empty chairs and exhaled slowly in the quiet. 

“Mind some company?” Murphy asked. 

She gestured at the chairs and he sat, legs spread wide and stretched out to their full length. “At least it was easy today,” she said. 

“Won't be the same tomorrow. When does President Peacemaker get here?”

“First thing in the morning.”

“Any idea what she's got planned?”

“No.” She glanced at Murphy. “I'm not sure she does, either. We didn't have a lot of time to get this together.” 

“Tell me about it. We had to kick everyone out of Limbo, pay back people who'd rented rooms, and get everything cleaned out and moved in barely two days.” 

“Your government thanks you.”

“It's not my government,” he muttered. 

“Limbo is part of Newmerica, isn't it? You sent representatives to Altura.”

“I have to keep an eye on which way the wind is blowing.”

She shut her eyes, rubbed her hands over her face. “I hate politics.” 

“It's an ugly business but someone's gotta do it.”

“Better you than me.” 

He tilted his head. “I'm not taking that bullet. That's why I have representatives.” He leaned forward, smiled knavishly at her. “Want to look at some nudie mags with me?”

“Murphy.” The response was automatic, but she found herself smiling. 

“What? We've got two hours to kill and nothing's gonna happen.” 

“No,” she said, her voice firm. She needed all her focus on the talkers and the anti-talkers this week. And after that there would be some other crisis, some other special apocalypse problem that she would have to focus on next. There would be no time for the confusing turmoil Murphy's – or her own – desire, caused her. No time to figure out why the emptiness inside always disappeared when she was with him. 

He shrugged and settled back in the chair again, whistled aimlessly. 

“You're not gonna leave?”

“Why? You have plans with someone else?”

“No, I just figured you'd be bored.”

“Roberta, if there is one thing I have learned in all of these years together, it's that you are rarely boring.” He tilted his chair back, rested his feet up on the table and closed his eyes. “Besides, I'd rather be bored here with you than by myself upstairs.” 

She smiled down at her hands, felt it in the pull of her cheeks. She tapped his foot and he opened one eye curiously. “Play some cards with me,” she said. “And we can figure out what Sketchy and Skeezy's first dance song should be.” 

“Deal, as long as it's not 'At Last.'”

“I would never let those two fools dance to Etta, please. Barack and Michelle own that one forever.” 

“That's why I like you.” He dealt them a hand of Texas Hold'em, and they played a series of rounds which they split between themselves while deciding that the perfect first dance for Sketchy and Skeezy was probably “This Kiss,” mostly because it was the only country love song either of them could remember.

“So,” Warren said after awhile, looking at a pair of 2s in her hand and two more twos on the board. “You apologized to Doc?” 

“Yeah.” Murphy dealt the river, an ace, and gestured at Warren to bet. 

She considered her hand again, figured the chances of Murphy being able to top four of a kind were slim at best, and bet high. She'd been laying this trap all day, betting high on guaranteed busts over and over. She figured she could hook him this time. “Looks like he accepted it.”

“He believes me, at least.” Murphy glanced at her, and did that thing where he plucked his mustache when he was convinced he was going to win. _Got him_ she thought. “But he doesn't want to be friends yet. I'm all in.” 

“You hurt his adopted son and then kept it from him. I'm not surprised.” She pretended to consider for a moment, looked at her hand, the face-up cards, and then his face. He did have a damn good poker face, always slightly cocky without being overly emotional. He looked like that with every hand, whether he won or not, and he had not won much today. “Did you cheat to let 10k win today?”

“Are you in or what?” he asked, not meeting her eyes directly. 

She'd learned that most of the words Murphy said didn't mean much at all. It was all the things he didn't say that were the window into his real feelings. “I'll meet you.” She pushed her bet to the center of the table with his. “Give Doc time. If he believes you, and you keep showing him you mean it, he'll come around.”

He nodded gratefully, though when Warren showed her hand and he looked at it and then the table cards, he sighed loud and long. 

“I knew I shouldn't have trusted you. You're much smarter than you were playing today.” He threw his cards down – he had triple aces, a good hand – and gathered the pile of ripped up papers they were using to bet with into a loose pile before shoving the whole thing her way. “Congratulations.” 

Warren pulled the two piles together and laughed delightedly. “Ha-ha! I finally got you.” 

“I should have brought my aces down.” 

“Take your lumps, loser,” she said cheerfully. “Can I exchange my winnings with the house?”

“After this is all over you can have whatever you want,” he said, and his voice had dropped into a register that made her shiver. She looked up at him from under her lashes, saw that same promise from earlier in his eyes. 

She leaned towards him like the bond between them was real, a short rope coiling tighter. She knew she should fight it; Murphy was an emotional danger zone, and she was dead and not much better. But she didn't feel dead now as she slid her hand across the table and brushed her fingertips over his wrist, slid her fingers around it and felt the pulse underneath. She became aware of the thump of her own heart in her chest and realized it pounded in time with his through her fingers. Somehow their hearts both kept beating, through Black Rain and gunshots and loss. 

“Come to my room tonight. You've earned the distraction,” he said. Under his easy words and casual clothes – he was down to just t-shirt and jeans this late in the evening – his body was tense, she could see it in the clench of muscles under the red skin of his forearm and the long line of his taut neck. 

This wouldn't just be a distraction, she realized. If she weren't careful this would be an earthquake and her foundations were already shaky. 

“Hey your watch is up,” Addy said, coming into the room. Murphy and Warren jerked back and away from each other and Addy's eye narrowed as she looked at them. “Everything ok, Warren?” she asked, suspicious. 

“Fine,” Warren said quickly, standing. “Just playing cards. You, uh, save these for me?” she asked Murphy and he nodded and turned a rueful smile on Addy. 

“She beat me fair and square.” He quickly gathered up the papers into neat little stacks, his hands moving swift and sure. “Goodnight, ladies,” he said, grabbing the stacks and heading to the doors that led to his room. He glanced back at Warren once, an invitation meant just for her, before disappearing. 

“That was weird,” Addy said, settling into the chair Murphy had left. She looked intently at Warren. “What's going on with you two?”

“Nothing you have to worry about.”

“If you say so. You can stay if you want but I'm glad he left. I've never understood how he doesn't constantly drive you crazy.” 

“Oh he does,” Warren said, smiling a little, and Addy gasped. 

“Holy shit are you in love with Murphy?” 

“What? No.” 

“That smile says otherwise.” 

Warren shook her head. “Well you're reading it wrong. I just care about him.”

“Uh-huh.” Addy leaned forward. “He tortured 10k,” she said, tapping the table to emphasize her words. 

“He did. And he's trying to make amends for it.”

“Because Red forced the issue. He would have let it go.” 

“That wasn't right, but he had reasons.” 

“Yeah, reasons that boil down to he's a selfish, uncaring asshole.”

“Addy.” 

Addy crossed her arms, glaring. “You going to try to tell me he's not like that?”

Warren sighed. She tugged a chair near Addy and sat down. “Did I tell you what I did to 10k back then?” Addy shook her head once, no. “Murphy sent him after us, and we captured him. I roughed 10k up. I knew he was under Murphy's control and I didn't care, I was just so angry about everything. I threw him around, I hit him. And then I shot him full of a random vaccine Sun Mei said could kill him, just because I was mad.” Addy's hands clenched her upper arms until the knuckles were white. “If Murphy hadn't taken him back, I don't know what else I would have done to try to get my way. I never apologized to 10k, either. You gonna hate me, too?”

“It wasn't the same and you know it,” Addy said, but her voice was unsteady. 

“And if you'd been there? You wouldn't have tried to stop me?”

Addy was quiet for a long minute. “I would have done whatever it took to stop you,” she said finally. 

Warren held her hands out to the side. “I didn't do it for the same reasons, and I didn't do as much. But I still hurt 10k and didn't care about it at the time.” 

“Murphy killed Lucy.”

Warren startled, her head pulling back. “Why do you think that?”

“I made Doc tell me what really happened, that she bit him to save him.” Addy's body was curled in on itself, like even talking about Lucy hurt her. 

“Lucy made that choice herself,” Warren said gently. “He's her father, Addy. She wanted to do it.” 

“He wasn't worth her life.” 

“He wouldn't disagree with you.” 

“Why do you always excuse him?”

“I'm not excusing anything. You think I don't know better than anyone what he's done?” Her tone was sharp, bright with frustration and anger, not on Murphy's behalf, but her own. “I'm not some lovestruck teenager and I'm not excusing any of it. I'm accepting it. Yes, he did those things. And his remorse is genuine. Red bringing up what he did shook him up, showed he meant it. Murphy from even two years ago would have shrugged it off because he didn't care.”

“Why would he change?”

“Lucy,” Warren said quietly, the anger draining away. Lucy had changed them all. “He changed because of Lucy.” She put her hand on Addy's knee. “You don't have to ever forgive him for any of it,” she said. “Even though I do, even if Doc eventually does.”

“If?” Addy said dryly, and Warren smiled. 

“When,” she amended. “I won't pressure you. Forgiveness has to be up to you alone. And if it never comes, that's all right. It's Murphy's loss, not yours. But you can't force me to carry that hate, either. I don't want it.”

Addy exhaled loudly. “You're wrong, you know. About him.” 

“Addy-”

“Not whether he's changed. It's been three years since I've seen him, I feel like I barely know him anymore. I feel like I barely know you anymore.” Warren squeezed Addy's knee. “I mean you're wrong about why he changed. It wasn't just Lucy, it was you, too. He's always listened more to you than any of us. I guess he took some of it to heart. And you may not love him,” she looked doubtful at that, “but he sure as shit loves you.”

“I know,” Warren said, because she did. She'd known for a long time, though it had been easy to deny it. What she didn't know is what love meant to Murphy, or what she would be willing to risk in return.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing right now. Or have you forgotten why we're here?”

“Ugh,” Addy rolled her eye. “I wish I could forget. This is a terrible plan.”

“You're here, aren't you?”

Addy shrugged. “George is persuasive.” 

“How's it going between you two?”

“Well she spent most of this morning trying to tell us what to bring for emergency supplies like we're not fully capable adults, so obnoxious as usual.” Addy shook her head. “Speaking of people who drive me crazy.”

“Mm,” Warren said, hiding a smile. “Hey whatever happened with your boy? The farmer?”

“Finn?” Warren nodded. “He's back at the farm, getting flour production going with lithium again. Why?”

“You think you two will settle down?”

Addy laughed so loudly Warren was worried she'd wake everyone up. “Settle down with Finn? Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“The way you guys were at the farm.” 

“Look, I love Finn, and we have sex sometimes, but we're just really good friends. I'm not a settling down type and anyway he doesn't have that thing about him.”

“What thing?”

“That thing that makes it seem like attaching yourself to someone in the apocalypse is worth it,” Addy said quietly. “You and I both know it's not.”

Warren thought of Charlie and his beautiful smile. “It can be while they're here.” 

“And when they're gone? Because they will be. Everybody leaves in the apocalypse, Warren. Even you.” 

Warren felt that one like a slap. “What?”

“Sure is crazy how we just randomly ran into each other again after all those years.”

“What does that mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything. Just that you sure found Lucy no problem, but I jumped off a cliff and we meet in this place.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

“Yeah, there is. You never even looked for me, not once. Doc told me all about your adventures,” she said, nearly spitting the last word. “All that time wandering the apocalypse and you didn't even look.”

“Addy, I had no idea where you were last year, none of us did.”

“Lucy did. We were supposed to meet here.” 

“She wanted to meet you,” Warren acknowledged. “It's my fault she didn't, I kept pushing us east.” 

“You should have come. Then Lucy wouldn't have died.”

Warren had had that thought too many times herself to be shocked by it now, but hearing it said aloud by Addy hurt more than she'd thought possible. 

“Did any of you even miss me?” Addy whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. Warren's heart constricted, a tight ball in her chest, and she pulled Addy into a hug as her tears started to fall. 

“Oh baby girl,” she said into Addy's hair. “We missed you every day.” 

“You should have come for me,” Addy sobbed into Warren's shoulder. “You should have come.” Warren held her and stroked her head, helpless to do anything but agree. 

After a couple of minutes, Addy's crying tapered off into long, shuddering breaths, and then sniffling as she pulled out of Warren's arms. Her eye was red and wet. “What the hell happened to us, Warren?”

“The apocalypse.”

“Well, it sucks.”

Warren laughed a little through tears, brushed them from her own cheeks. “Don't I know it.” She moved her chair right next to Addy's and wrapped her arm around the other woman's shoulder, and they rested their heads against each other. “I'm so sorry, sister. I am so sorry we left you out there.” 

Addy bit her lip and nodded silently, and they sat next to each other in the dim light of Limbo with the weight of the past between them.


	14. Chapter 14

Though Murphy stayed awake late into the night, Warren never came to his room, and when he eventually fell asleep his dreams were both sexually frustrating and anxious. He woke with the sun and an erection and felt like he hadn't slept at all. 

“Perfect way to start the day,” he muttered to no one, before going to take a quick cold shower. 

Half an hour later he was cooler and calmer, and dressed in a purple velvet suit for the official kickoff. He hadn't been entirely honest with Warren yesterday about why he'd gone so casual; he'd mostly done it for her, wanted her to be as comfortable with him now as she had been when they'd traveled to Newmerica from Cooper's house. But everything had felt too close like that, like he was an armorless knight in the middle of a battle. He felt lucky to have escaped yesterday with his emotional equilibrium mostly intact, bad dreams notwithstanding. He couldn't risk being so unprepared today. 

Murphy examined himself in the mirror, smoothed a stray hair back into place. He looked in control, not like a man veering wildly around, all the things he wanted buffeting him from side-to-side. He sighed at his reflection. “Day two of four. You've got this,” he said, and neither of them believed it. 

Downstairs he found Warren and the others awake, and Sketchy arriving back from the basement with a stack of empty plates. Skeezy was nowhere to be found and George had not yet arrived. 

“Morning,” he said to the room. There were various mumbling responses from Sketchy, Doc, Warren, and, surprisingly, Addy. “Where's our fearless leader?”

“On her way,” Warren said. “She called Red, let us know she got a late start trying to finish up the plan for the congress she left behind.” 

“I can't believe we're having a congress again. I thought we all agreed they were useless last time.” 

“George said they were going to do it differently, make it all work better.” 

“What's wrong with anarchy?”

Warren glared at him, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Addy smile a little and nod to herself. There were noises from upstairs, and then Skeezy appeared. “Morning all.” He headed to Sketchy and kissed him, they whispered something quietly to each other and then he looked at Murphy. “You do something special with your bizkits? They're real good.” 

“They're made with love by Marion,” he said. “Oh and brains. It's probably the brains.” 

Skeezy swallowed, his prominent adam's apple bobbing in his throat. “Brains aren't gonna turn me more zombie are they?”

“You'll be fine,” Murphy said dismissively. “I've had plenty of brains and I'm not any more zombie.” There were a few discrete coughs and he eyed the room. “Very funny.” 

“It's true though,” Addy said. “I've seen plenty of talkers eat brains, it helps them.”

The sound of footsteps on the basement stairs brought them all around, and the anti-talkers filed up, led by Estes. “Where's George” he said. 

“Not even a greeting first, Roman? Where are your manners?” Murphy said blandly. 

“Good morning,” Estes said sarcastically. “Where's George?”

“On her way,” Warren said. She was looking at him with that same murderous stare from yesterday. 

“Gives us some time to talk then,” Estes said to her, but when he took a step towards Warren, Murphy moved into Estes' path. 

“You can sit at that table over there,” Murphy said. “These are full.” 

There were plenty of open seats at the tables behind him, but he stared down Estes with his best arrogant poker face, until Estes apparently decided a fight over chairs wasn't worth it and he and the anti-talkers sat down on the other side of the room. 

“Can we at least have some water?” Estes asked. 

“On it!” Sketchy said, scurrying to the kitchen. Murphy turned his back on Estes and the others, stalked over to Warren and met her flinty gaze. 

“You can't kill him until this is all done,” he said quietly. 

“I know. But I can imagine it.”

“Try not to imagine it so loudly, will you?” She snorted, but nodded. Murphy glanced around the room, saw the others getting back to whatever they had been doing, and Estes and the anti-talkers quietly conversing. “Sleep okay last night?” he asked softly. 

She studied him. “Didn't get as much sleep as I wanted. Stayed up with Addy and talked out some things; had trouble falling asleep after that. You?”

If he was smart, he'd tell her he'd slept great and he'd walk away now with his dignity still intact. “No,” he said instead like an idiot. “I dreamed about you.” 

“Oh,” she said, and then she smiled in a way that made him think he'd need another cold shower soon. “Good dreams?” 

“Some of them.” 

“What were they about?”

“I'd be happy to tell you all about them later.” 

“What are we doing here?” she whispered, leaning closer towards him. 

“Just talking.” He was pretty sure it was him imagining too loudly now, a fantasy of leading her back to his room and making good on some of last night's dreams. 

The talkers' voices floated down from their stairway, and Warren flinched back away from him. He wanted to tangle his hands in her hair and kiss her right there in front of everybody. Instead he straightened his tie and turned to face the stairwell. 

Ikiryō seemed to float into the room, paused as the other talkers arranged themselves behind her. She looked around, saw Warren and Murphy, and headed their way. 

“Great,” Warren groaned behind him. 

“Good morning Lieutenant,” Ikiryō said to her. “Mr. Murphy, thank you for the accommodations, and our helper.” 

“I hope he hasn't annoyed you too much.” 

“Hey!” Skeezy said from where he'd been leaning against the wall. 

Ikiryō smiled. “He has been an enthusiastic assistant.” She looked around the room, not even pausing on the anti-talkers. “Where is George?”

“On her way,” Warren said. “In the meantime, we're supposed to all get to know each other.” 

“I hope they ate enough bizkits this morning,” one of the anti-talkers, Bill, said. “Don't want them to get hungry and attack us.” 

“Scared already? Typical weak human,” Adze said. 

This was starting pretty much how Murphy had expected. He gestured for Ikiryō and the talkers to take a seat at a table near the anti-talkers, and walked over with them. Estes kept glancing at Warren, but Murphy couldn't tell if his shifty eyes were nerves or something else. There were a lot of points this whole thing could explode, but Estes was the one Murphy was most convinced would be the fuse.

In the awkward silence, Murphy heard people shifting, Doc's low cough, 10k tapping his antler against something. Were they all really going to sit and stare at each other until George got here? 

“We should play cards,” Doc said, startling everyone. “Cards are always a good ice-breaker. What do you think Murphy?”

He picked up Doc's desperate question. “Sure. But we'll need to split into two groups, there's too many of us to play together. I can deal one game, you got the other?” Doc nodded, so Murphy pointed him towards where the cards were stored. 

“Okay,” Doc said, returning with several packs. “How about three talkers and two humans with me, and two talkers and three humans with Murphy?”

“What about Lieutenant Warren and the others?” Ikiryō asked. 

“We're not here to play,” Warren said in a firm voice. 

“You may learn more if you did.” 

“I'll jump in next time.” 

Ikiryō, looking unperturbed, stood with Adze and walked to Estes' table. “Mr. Estes, will you and two of your companions join us at Mr. Murphy's table?”

Murphy grimaced. He'd hoped the two leaders would go with Doc. But Estes gestured to Bill and Linda, and they came and sat around the table Murphy was shuffling cards at. He saw Addy, Red, and 10k gather near Doc's table, and Warren, Sketchy, and Skeezy came to his. 

“We're playing Blackjack,” Murphy said, the cards sliding smoothly in his hands. Dealing always made him feel more confident; the cards familiar to his fingers, the way the players watched him expectantly, usually waiting for a show. These players watched him, too, the two talkers shoved on one side, the humans on the other. There was a noticeably empty space between them. “Do you all know how to play?” Everyone nodded. “Good. Remember, it's all of you against the dealer.” He dealt everyone two cards face-up, turned one up and one down for himself. He had a jack showing. 

“What are we betting with?” Estes asked, his voice genuinely curious. He was showing a queen and a seven. 

“Let's not bring actual gambling into this,” Warren said. 

“It we're not really gambling with anything, then what will we truly learn?” Ikiryō asked. He could feel Warren's annoyance radiating from her without even having to turn around. 

“Sketchy, there are plastic chips behind the counter over there. Go get a box for us and for Doc.” While Sketchy did that, Murphy surreptitiously checked out his face-down card. An ace. What were the odds?

He handed out a small stack of chips to each person when Sketchy returned with the box. 

“What do these represent?” Bill asked. “Bullets?”

“Minutes with a private hot shower,” Murphy said. Every one of them seemed to vibrate at that. Hot showers were still a luxury even in Newmerica, and private ones were unheard of. 

“Damn,” Warren murmured. “Maybe you should deal me in.” 

He smirked and turned to Ikiryō on his left. She had a ten and a three. “What's your move?” he asked her.

She looked at her cards, his jack, and said, “hit me.” He dealt her another card, a five this time. 

“Eighteen,” he said. 

“Hit me again.”

Estes frowned. “You have eighteen.” 

“The dealer likely has twenty,” Ikiryō said. “Eighteen is not enough to win. Hit me.”

Murphy shrugged. “Your loss.” But he dealt her a three. Sketchy and Skeezy both gasped. “Twenty-one,” Murphy announced. Ikiryō smiled. 

He turned to Adze, who had sixteen. “Hit me,” he said. Murphy dealt him a king, causing him to bust. Murphy swept the cards and chips out of the way and looked at Linda, who had an nine and a three. 

“Another card,” she said, staring at Ikiryō. Murphy dealt her a ten, and she slapped her hand down angrily on the table. Bill stayed with an eighteen, which left Estes and his seventeen. 

“What would you do, Lieutenant?” he asked Warren. Murphy felt her bristle. 

“I wouldn't have been a murdering, bigoted jerk and gotten myself into this situation,” she said sweetly. 

Estes glared at her. “Give me another card,” he ordered Murphy. 

Murphy dealt him a five. “Twenty-two,” he said happily. “Bust.” He collected Estes' cards and coins and flipped over his own card. “Twenty-one,” he said. Bill grunted and Ikiryō lifted one eyebrow. “It's a tie.”

Murphy dealt another hand. 

They played for over an hour, and the results seemed to turn in Ikiryō's favor over and over. Linda ran out of chips early and shoved angrily away from the table, stalking back down to the basement. Adze was out next, not able to capitalize on his leader's incredible luck. Bill and Estes hung in for awhile, although Bill ran out about two-thirds of the way through. He stayed to watch Estes lose the rest of his chips four hands later, and they both watched Ikiryō and Murphy play another ten hands, of which the house won only three. She played smartly, stayed calm, and had a truly astonishing ability to get just the right cards to keep from going over. If she hadn't been so coolly smug about it, Murphy would have admired her. 

Sketchy and Skeezy seemed to be salivating as they watched her play, and Murphy could only imagine the terrible plans they were coming up with to try to partner with her after they were all done this week. 

A knock on Limbo's front door halted his hand before he could deal out another round, and he closed the box of chips while Warren went to let George in. “Congratulations,” he told Ikiryō. “You've got almost two hours of shower time there. Going to spread that around?” 

She shoved every chip back to him. “I will not use them,” she said, and he noticed the disappointed pull of Adze's mouth. _Interesting._

“Then what did you even want to gamble for?” Bill asked angrily. 

“To see what kind of man you are. It appears you are a stupid one.” 

Bill stood up quickly, and so did Murphy, his hand on the pistol he'd tucked under the table. Then Warren was there with George, who had her hands held out soothingly. 

“Bill, good to see you again,” she said. 

“She called me stupid,” he said, pointing at Ikiryō. 

George's face twisted in frustration. “Gambling makes people do crazy stuff, man.”

“She's not a person, she's a talker.” 

“He's right about that at least. I am.” 

George looked over at Ikiryō with an almost comically annoyed glare. “You make a big deal about talkers being better than humans, but name-calling seems pretty childish to me.” 

Ikiryō's cheek twitched and Murphy filed that away, too. Just like with poker, sometimes you had to push a round to find out what everyone's weaknesses were. 

“Point taken,” Ikiryō said. 

“Good. Then let's get this gathering kicked off.” George looked at Estes then, and Murphy was certain even if it had been pitch black the flare of anger in her eyes would have still been visible. “Roman.” 

“George. You look tired.” 

“You look lonely. Missing your talker sex toy?”

“Missing yours?”

George's hands clenched into fists. “Dante was my friend,” she hissed. “You used Pandora.” 

Murphy leaned down towards Warren. “Have they not talked since he was locked away?” he asked her quietly. She shrugged and he straightened again. “Reunions are great, aren't they?” he said loudly, clapping his hands, bringing everyone's attention to him. He took a moment to admire the purple of his suit against the red of his skin. He'd have to compliment Wesson on picking it, he'd been right. “Can we stop all this petty bullshit and get to why we're here?”

George lowered her shoulders and her fists, stretched her neck side-to-side. “Murphy's right,” she said. “But this is exactly why we're here.” For a fleeting moment, he wondered if this whole thing had been some bizarre ambush to murder Roman Estes, and hoped he could get in a shot or two himself, before George continued and deflated his dream. “To work out how to live together, even with people we have every reason to hate. There's not many of us left,” she said, turning now to encompass the group. Murphy noticed Linda hovering by the doorway to the basement. “Humans, talkers. We're both outnumbered by zombies. We're both hunted by zombies. I didn't bring you all here to sing kumbaya and discover the meaning of friendship in the apocalypse. I have plenty of friends already,” she smiled at Warren, Doc. “I have plenty of enemies, too.” She nodded at Estes. “What I need more of, from my friends and my enemies, are people who will stand next to me, not because they like me or because they want to be close enough to see me fall, but because they're going to help me hold up Newmerica. You,” she said, pointing at Bill, “maybe you hold an end opposite of his,” she gestured at Adze. “But you hold it all the same, because otherwise half of it slips into the grasp of the zombies and then the other half goes right after.” 

Murphy hated to admit it, but he had to admire her tactic. Ikiryō and Estes both seemed unmoved, but the others looked uncertain, which was a win as far as this whole conference was concerned. 

“And when their half runs out of bizkits again and starts eating our half?” Estes asked. 

“We've been looking at lithium supplies, at using other animal's brains. If we help talkers get what they need – and we all stop killing each other indiscriminately – then at our current turn rate we've got more time than you thought. Enough to produce the cure, to find other alternatives for our energy.”

“Why would anyone want to be cured, when they could have eternal life as a talker?” Ikiryō asked. 

_Good question_ Murphy thought. 

“Some people may not want to become talkers,” George said carefully.

“Will the zombie cure be mandatory for all humans?” 

George hesitated. “We haven't discussed that yet.” 

“People should be allowed to choose.”

“To choose to eat humans? Absolutely not,” Linda said, coming forward. “Once it's ready, the zombie cure should be given to everyone. It's not right to keep walking around once you've died.” 

Murphy glanced at Warren, but her face was unyielding stone, giving nothing away. 

Caxton, a talker who had been quiet so far, said, “talkers can't get the cure. Most of us would die immediately from what caused our first death.” 

“As nature intended,” Linda said. 

Caxton growled. “You'd murder every talker?”

“It's not murder if they're already dead. It's mercy. It's putting things back to rights.” 

The talkers, except for Ikiryō, surged forward, and Warren leapt into action, Murphy right behind her. Opposite he saw Doc and 10k step in front of the humans. Murphy shoved Caxton back with a hand to the chest. 

“No fighting,” he snapped. 

“She wants to kill us all!” he said, throwing off Murphy's hand. “Shouldn't I get to defend myself?”

“Fighting her is not gonna help,” Warren said. “You know George wants to protect the talkers. She's not going to force any of us to take a vaccine that will kill us. Come on man, be smart.”

Caxton snarled, but he stayed put. Murphy glanced over his shoulder, saw Doc, 10k, and Sketchy had formed a wall in front of the humans. He met Doc's eyes and Doc shook his head. 

“Everybody sit down,” George said, her voice firm. No one moved. “SIT DOWN,” she shouted, and that jolted them into action, sent humans and talkers scattering to find seats. Murphy, Warren, and the others eased back to the edges, while Ikiryō and Estes remained standing, watching each other. 

“We knew this was going to be tough,” George said after a brief silence. “I'm not surprised by any of it, in fact I expected it. This is life and death we're talking about here. For humans and talkers,” she looked at each group. “Maybe Newmerica is impossible. Maybe we should all just call it a day and let the zombies win. I'm tired of fighting, of trying to work out a compromise with people who can't look beyond themselves and think about a future. And I get it. For a long time a lot of us didn't think we'd have a future to worry about. It was easier to focus on the day-to-day; wake up and stay alive, and the rest we could worry about later. Maybe you want to go back to that.” George shrugged. “But I don't. See, it sounded easy because we were losing then. Every day was a loss, and we didn't even know it was possible to win. I mean we'd heard rumors of a cure. Of The Murphy,” she nodded at Murphy and he smirked. “But for most of us in this room, they were rumors. We all knew that the best we could do was to keep ourselves and our loved ones alive as long as possible. And against all odds the years passed and we stayed alive and, up here at least, we realized that more _was_ possible. Roman, you started Altura over a year ago. We spent a lot of nights talking about the city we'd someday build. None of that has changed, except the people who will be in that city. Talkers are people.” The humans grumbled and George frowned at them. “If you died right now,” she said to the anti-talkers, “you'd turn into a talker, too. You'd still be yourself, your body would just be different. What you eat would be different. But you'd still be the same person you were. If your partner or your children died, they would, too. And yet you would condemn them for it.” The humans were quiet in response. 

George turned to the talkers. “You are people,” she said and it sounded like a reminder. “The only difference between you and me is that you've gone through first death. That doesn't make you a different species, it just makes you a different person with a different experience.” Ikiryō looked entirely unmoved by this argument, but a couple of the others, Emily especially, seemed uncertain. 

“What about blends,” Murphy murmured under his breath, but Warren must have heard him because she elbowed him in the side. 

“Your words sound logical, George,” Ikiryō said. “But you're missing one fundamental truth, a truth I would not expect a human to understand.” 

“And that is?”

“Talkers are better than humans.” 

The anti-talkers' response was swift and loud, and George worked to quiet them before turning back to Ikiryō. “Why do you say that?”

“Because we have died and been reborn as our true selves. We are not stopped by bullets like humans are. We have become fearless, and that makes us powerful. Isn't that right Lieutenant?” Next to Murphy, Warren shifted but remained quiet. “Lieutenant Warren is discovering her power and it's made her fiercer. You gave her the gift of that knowledge, Mr. Estes, when you shot her and released her from the handcuffs of being human.” 

“I'm still human,” Warren said.

“No, Lieutenant, you are something more.” 

“You know I'm not a talker, either. I don't need brains to keep from losing control, like you do. Does that make me better than you, too? Same with Murphy and the blends. Should it be us in charge of everything?” 

Ikiryō seemed, for once, caught off-balance by the question and her silence was loud. 

“I thought so,” Warren said. She walked slowly into the middle of the room. “We can't talk about people being better than other people. That has never worked, or even been true, in the history of humanity. It ends the same way every time and I _will not_ let it happen again. Talkers are not better than humans. Humans are not better than talkers. I'm not better than either of you. Well, maybe you, Estes,” she said, and he sneered. “Like George said, we don't have to leave here as friends. But you all better get on this first page real quick, or we're going to shut this book and you'll have to leave Newmerica for good. All your friends, all your family, all your easy access to bizkits and food: gone. You're not children; there isn't going to be a reward for trying a little bit. You're going to be adults and you're going to fight for our one chance to save all of us, talkers and humans and blends alike or you can go rot in the apocalypse. Do you understand?” 

Murphy watched her stare down first Ikiryō and then Estes, hardly even blinking until she got reluctant nods from them both, then the proud arch of her eyebrow when they did, and a wave of feeling swept over him of such backbreaking intensity that he could hardly breathe. It slammed against all the walls he'd spent his life building, but not from the outside, from the inside, his protection being destroyed by his own heart. _Shit_ , Murphy thought, _shit shit shit_. If Cooper had seen her like this, he would never have left, his stupid farmhouse be damned. Murphy felt like a moth pulled towards a brilliant light, not just helpless but eager to brush against it even if it meant his destruction. They had spent most of the apocalypse together and he had been able to protect himself from what his heart wanted and suddenly, here in this room that Warren commanded, his defenses weakened by sex and regret and time, his heart revolted at being contained any longer. He crossed his arms over his chest to keep himself from letting everything spill out in front of everyone, looked away from her quickly as her head turned towards him, not wanting her to see what would be impossible to hide. He couldn't afford to let these feelings run loose when all this was was a distraction. He had to avoid her, but there was nowhere to go that she couldn't reach. 

“Didn't mean to take the floor from you,” Warren said. 

“No that was perfect,” George said. “I feel like we can get to work now.”


	15. Chapter 15

'Getting to work,' it turned out, meant exactly that: George led everyone outside and opened the trunk of the truck she'd driven in. There were multiple big boxes inside and she directed the talkers and anti-talkers to each take one and bring it back inside. 

Warren gravitated back towards Murphy's side, but he kept eluding her, barely even looking her way, and she ended up next to Addy instead, wondering what was going on as the others unloaded the truck. Why would he barely even look at her? 

“Are these Ikea boxes?” Doc asked, helping offload boxes into the humans' and talkers' arms. 

“Yep,” George said, grinning. “Not a lot of call for cheap furniture in the apocalypse until now.” She led everyone inside and eventually there were several stacks of different sized boxes cluttering the middle of the room. 

“What is she doing?” Addy asked quietly, and Warren shrugged. 

“Your guess is as good as mine.” 

“I spent a lot of time thinking about how we could make the most of this time together,” George said. “Just sitting around and arguing may be okay for a little bit, but talking at each other isn't going to change anyone's mind and if that was all we did we wouldn't even get anything useful out of it. So we're going to do some things for Newmerica together, and if we talk and argue while we're doing them, at least Newmerica will have benefitted from it. Today's activity is furniture for the kids.” She gestured at the boxes. “We raided an Ikea warehouse that was near Altura awhile ago, but it's been slow going through everything and kids at some of the other outposts haven't had a chance to get anything yet. So we're going to build them some furniture. You'll work in pairs that I pick and will build as many of these as you can by the time the sun sets today. The pair that gets the most built gets to sit and eat while the rest of us have to clean up.” 

“And if we come in last?” Jermaine asked, interested. 

“Then you have to help load the furniture back on the truck.” 

“And if we don't do this at all?” Ikiryō said, much less interested. 

“Then you don't eat.” 

Ikiryō's eyes narrowed. “You know what happens if we don't eat.”

George smiled brightly. “Then you better build.” She winked and rubbed her chin. “Okay, let's pick teams.” She started with Ikiryō's and Estes' supporters first, pairing Emily and Jermaine, Onza and Dev, Caxton and Linda, and Adze and Bill. They were interesting choices, putting people who clearly had beefs with each other together and letting the ones who had so far been quiet and seemed most easily influenced work together. Warred nodded appreciatively. 

Estes and Ikiryō looked at each other and Estes gave his usual smirk. “I guess that leaves us,” he said. 

“Actually no,” George said. “Ikiryō and I are going to be a team and you are going to work with Warren.” She looked apologetically at Warren as she said it, but her voice was firm. 

“Me?” Everyone was watching her, waiting for her reaction. She was gonna kill George. What she wanted was to look to Murphy, knowing he would be as offended by having this dropped on her as she was. But he was near the back of the room as though he were hiding. “Great,” she said instead, meeting Estes' uncertain eyes. 

“Ok then,” George said, clearly relieved. “Let's get to it. Teams, pick your first piece and get building.” 

Warren stalked by George while the others tentatively approached each other. “I'm gonna make you pay later,” she whispered before turning to Estes. “If you worked for Zona, you must be good at following bad directions,” she said. 

“Do you hate me because I shot you or because I was with Zona?”

“Either will do.” They glared at each other and then she turned to the pile, grabbed the nearest box. It said 'Sundvik' on the side and someone had written “1 of 2” on it. She searched through the pile until she found the second box and Estes came and picked it up. They found an unoccupied corner near the door and set their boxes down. 

“At least we can agree neither of us wants to do this,” Estes said, staring at the unopened boxes. 

Warren pulled out her machete, was rewarded with his sudden flinch, and sliced the tape holding the boxes together. “But we're going to do it anyway,” she said, emptying their boxes onto the floor. Estes picked up the paper that fluttered to the ground, studied it. 

“Okay first check to make sure everything is here.”

“Uh-uh,” Warren said, snatching the paper out of his hands. “You don't get to lead this team. You shot me, I get to lead.” 

“You didn't even die,” he muttered. 

“That doesn't make it okay.” She studied the paper, matched the expected materials to what was scattered on the ground in front of them. “Unless you want to count screws, it looks like it's all here.” She pointed at a piece of wood with a big wave along half of one end. “Okay grab two of those and I'll get the screws.” 

Estes didn't move and Warren's hand itched to pull her machete out again. It would be so easy to get her payback before anyone could stop her. He'd probably hit the floor before they even knew what was happening. But then Estes bent to grab the pieces and looked at her expectantly and the moment passed. 

They set to work, Warren directing in short, terse bursts and Estes, unexpectedly, doing what she told him to. For as much as she hated him, he didn't fight her and he was quick to understand what needed to happen next. They didn't talk beyond focusing on the mission at hand and they finished in under two hours. While Estes tested the secureness of the connections, she took a look around the room, saw the others were mostly half done, except for Ikiryō and George, who had barely even started. George was staring angrily at the pile and Ikiryō had her arms crossed over her chest looking stubborn. Warren didn't envy George that mess. 

“Ready for the next one?” Estes asked. She nodded and he went back to the stacks, grabbed another one of the same bed they'd just made. “Now that we've done one, it will go even faster this time,” he said, carrying the box over. 

“Good strategy,” she admitted grudgingly. 

“Break for lunch!” George shouted suddenly, just as Warren had sliced open the second set of boxes. She watched George stalk outside, considered following her but saw Doc was already on the case. 

Everyone else stood and stretched, and Jermaine and Emily seemed to actually be talking to each other about something that made Emily laugh. 

“Huh,” Warren said. Next to her, Estes watched Jermaine and Emily as well. 

“Jermaine,” he called. “Come eat some real food with the rest of the humans.” Warren glared at Estes, but he shrugged nonchalantly. “Just telling the truth, Lieutenant.” 

Jermaine looked embarrassed but he smiled apologetically at Emily and joined Estes and the other anti-talkers as they disappeared back down into their room in the basement. Ikiryō said something to Emily too soft for Warren to make out except for the sharp edge of it, and the talkers retreated to their space upstairs. Sketchy and Skeezy, who had been playing cards with each other most of the day, hurried off after their respective charges. 10k and Addy were already outside, had both eagerly volunteered to keep an eye on things around the perimeter while the building contest went on, which left Red, Warren, and Murphy alone in the wide, empty main room of Limbo. 

“I should bring the others some food,” Red said to Warren, ignoring Murphy. “George said she brought some veggie wraps in a cooler in the truck. Do you want one?”

“No thanks, I'm not hungry.” 

“I'll have one,” Murphy said, but Red didn't look his way, just walked out of Limbo without acknowledging him at all. “Should have expected that,” Murphy murmured when she was gone.

Warren stared hard at Murphy, but he tapped his fingers idly on the bar and didn't quite look at her. “Hey,” she said, and his glance flicked her way and then ricocheted off like it burned. “What's up with you?” 

“Just focused on the mission.” 

“The mission,” she scoffed. “Where was this dedication five years ago?” He shrugged. “You can't even talk to me now?”

He cleared his throat, pressed his hands into the wood of the bar as though steeling himself, and then looked at her. “Everything going ok?” he asked. He looked stressed, though she had no idea why. 

“Been a long morning,” she said slowly. “But at least I get to boss Estes around.” His mouth twisted briefly into a smile. Warren shifted nearer to him, and he moved around to the other side of the bar. 

“Need some liquid strength? I've got a couple things hidden back here.” 

“No, I need to be sharp.” Murphy put back the glass he'd pulled out, rubbed at something on the bar top with his thumb and went back to seemingly pretending she didn't exist. What the hell was happening? 

Doc and George came back inside, George looking calmer and resigned. 

“Hanging in there?” Warren asked her. 

“Everyone's still alive,” George said stoically. 

“How are the rest of the pairs doing?”

Murphy, having apparently rediscovered his voice, spoke up. “More arguing than you and Estes, less than George and Ikiryō, and they're at least trying. Those two that Estes yelled at even seem to be getting along. We'll see what happens now that the teams have retreated to their locker rooms.” 

“We should have everybody eat together, too,” George said. “I don't want them to dig back down into their holes.” 

Warren squeezed George's shoulder. “What's going on with you and Ikiryō?”

“We're not seeing eye-to-eye.” 

“That's an understatement,” Murphy snorted. “Ikiryō's a bigger pain in the ass than I am, and I know that's saying something.” 

“She's been stonewalling me at every step, not even lifting a finger to help. But I can't get started without losing the battle,” George said. “So we're at a stalemate.” 

“You two will be the ones cleaning up tonight unless you just kick Ikiryō out when she gets back,” Murphy said.

“If Ikiryō goes, so will her followers and the whole thing will have been a waste,” George said quietly. 

“Except for the bed Warren and Estes put together,” Doc added helpfully. 

“What should I do?” But instead of directing the question to Warren, George asked Murphy. 

“Me?” Murphy looked genuinely surprised. 

“You seem to have a good read on people. What will work on Ikiryō?”

He stroked his beard and Warren remembered how it had felt brushing her thighs, how his hands had felt around her hips. She wondered what his dreams last night had been like, and why he was suddenly avoiding her now. 

“I think you're doing the right thing,” he said. “Keep holding out. You both know you can't kick Ikiryō out yet, but if you start building, then Ikiryō never has to participate. I say you see it through to the end and then don't let any of the talkers eat any bizkits.” 

“Any of them? How are we going to stop that?” 

“After everyone comes back, I'll have Skeezy search the room to make sure they haven't stored any away and then we just keep the talkers out of the kitchen.” 

“That sounds like it will lead to a fight.” 

“It might. I think Ikiryō will help clean up first though. If you get her to help clean up, after doing nothing all day, you'll have come out ahead.” 

“Why can't we let the other talkers eat, too?” Doc asked. 

“They might apply some extra pressure on Ikiryō. If Ikiryō only has to think about herself, she might be devoted enough to just go full zombie.” 

“She won't expect them to all do it?” Warren asked. 

“She might, but they won't, and they'll talk her down.”

George considered him. “That's a good answer.” 

“You asked and yet you sound so surprised.”

George huffed out a breath, folded her arms across her chest. “I thought I could get through to her if she just talked to me but it's like talking to a brick wall. We'll try your way, Mr. Murphy. Let's round everybody up, I don't want them to be separated for too long.” 

Murphy seemed to almost run upstairs to where the talkers were, and Doc volunteered to head back down to get the humans. When it was just her and George, George chewed her lip and said, “hey, uh, sorry about the Estes thing.” 

“You should have warned me.” 

“I thought you'd find some way to get out of it, and we need you. While I was busy not working I did get to watch some of them, and they looked to you and Estes as much as me and Ikiryō. I couldn't put those two together to start this off or it would have failed immediately. I owe you one. Newmerica owes you one.” 

“A big one. Can I start by getting an upgrade to my Altura apartment?”

“We're space-limited but we've still got a bunch of Ikea stuff for adults you can have first pick of.”

“As long as I don't have to build it myself.”

George grinned. “Deal.” 

The others filtered back in and the easy teamwork of the morning had clearly already been lost. Estes sauntered over to Warren waiting by their pile and held out his hand. “I think it's my turn to direct now.” 

“Think again,” she said. 

“It doesn't seem like you're being a good teammate, Lieutenant.”

“We're not a team,” she said in a low, tight voice. “You're just some asshole I'm stuck with.” 

“Newmerica needs me just as much as it needs you. Wasn't George saying that earlier?”

Warren's fingers curled into her palms and she pressed her nails into the soft flesh until it hurt. “Newmerica needs people who won't destroy each other,” she said. “Why don't you prove to me that's you by doing what I say?”

“From what Linda and the others have told me, it's you who needs to prove that to me. Chasing after them just to get in a fight? Not very community-minded.”

_Killing him will only make this worse_ she told herself firmly. And then, because she didn't believe it, she added, _and George will be really mad at you._ “They fired the first shot.”

“They told me that was self-defense.” 

“There was a whole group of them and one of me, how was that self-defense?”

“You're basically indestructible now, aren't you? It would be like a group of humans facing Superman.”

“I am not Superman,” she grit between clenched teeth. “Superman wouldn't do _this_.” She bent down and picked up the board they needed and cracked it hard into Estes' knee. He shouted and fell to the ground, clutching his leg. Everyone in the room turned to look and Warren stood slowly, meeting their shocked faces. “Oops,” she said. From the side, she heard Addy laugh once, sharp and loud as a gunshot. 

George hurried over, shot Warren a quick glare, and bent down by Estes' side. Doc and the anti-talkers crowded around, too, while Warren backed away. 

“Finally cracked, huh?” Addy said quietly. 

“It was an accident,” Warren said. Addy smiled knowingly. 

Doc was able to convince Estes nothing was broken and the man finally pulled himself back to his feet and sat in a nearby chair. Sketchy arrived with a chilled ice pack. 

“You did that on purpose,” Estes said, pressing the ice pack to his knee. “You should be thrown out of here. What are you going to do about this, George?”

George sighed and rubbed her forehead. “What happened, Warren?”

“I stood up too fast and smacked his leg.” 

“You said you were going to do it before it even happened!”

“No I didn't.” 

Estes' eyes went wide and wild and George held her hands out to both of them. “Did anyone see what happened?” The others all shrugged or shook their heads. “We don't have any proof either way, and you were working together fine this morning. Warren, just apologize and then you can build the rest of your stuff on your own today while Estes directs.” 

“I'm sorry you hurt your knee,” Warren said. 

“What kind of a lousy-”

“Great! Everybody back to work,” George shouted over Estes' complaint. She glared at Warren again and everyone returned back to their piles. Estes was red-faced, his arms clamped tightly over his chest. 

“Guess I win anyway,” he said. “Now give me the instructions.” 

Warren crumpled them into a ball and threw it to the far corner where he couldn't reach. “Get them yourself,” she said. She turned her back on him and started building the bed from memory. Her fingers were trembling with rage. She knew she shouldn't have done it, but she didn't care. She felt as broken apart as this bed, as difficult to put together, and as lost trying to do it alone. Warren found herself looking to Murphy, but he had his back to her while talking to Sketchy and Skeezy. Addy was outside with 10k again, and Red and Doc were chatting on the far side of the room. All that waited for her were Estes and the pile of wood and screws. She could hit Estes again, harder this time and in the head. Or she could just leave. Leave Estes with his violent, angry eyes; leave George with her idealistic hopes; leave Addy and the others with their new lives. Leave Murphy with Limbo and his blends and his place in Newmerica. She left the pile undone and headed for the door, ignoring Estes' indignant “where are you going?” behind her. 

Pausing in the doorway, she looked for Murphy one last time and as though he felt her, Murphy turned and stared directly back. The wanting she saw before he quickly turned away again anchored her in place. It called like a siren to the part of her still trying to swim up out of the emptiness and find the shore. He was hiding that longing from her, she realized. Was he ashamed of it, or afraid? Which one did she want it to be? Warren felt like she couldn't be set free until she knew, even if knowing just ripped away the last shred of safety she clung to. 

Decided, she turned back to her responsibilities, knowing she would stay long enough to understand what it all meant, and then she could go.

**********

By herself and without the instructions to follow, it took Warren twice as long and a few backtracks to build the second bed, but after ignoring Estes' occasional attempts at directing her he was quiet and she was able to lose herself in the puzzle. She was startled when George called out that the time was done, looked up from the last screw she was tightening to see the others finishing off their items. Except for George and Ikiryō, who had not managed to even start their first one. Ikiryō sat in a chair, hands folded in her lap, looking self-satisfied. George looked dismayed, but Warren could see the tight clench of her jaw that heralded an oncoming storm. Sometime during the afternoon someone had lit lamps all around the room, and the sweet smell of burning oil was in the air.

George walked around the room, looking at furniture, nodding at the three pieces that Jermaine and Emily had put together. “Looks like you two get to break early for dinner,” she said, and they high-fived each other. “Sketchy, Skeezy, can you set them up at the table over there?” The two men nodded and scurried off. “The rest of you, except Estes I guess, need to help clean up.” 

The humans grumbled but started picking up boxes, while the anti-talkers watched Ikiryō, who remained seated. 

Warren stood slowly, alert. 

“Ikiryō, come help everybody clean up. We couldn't even finish one,” George said, putting on a flat smile. 

“No.” 

George took a deep breath. “You didn't even try,” she said calmly. “And you won't help now?”

“I will not. I'm not here to play childish games.”

“Why did you come then?” 

The humans halted, and everyone watched the unfolding drama. 

Ikiryō stood. “So humans could understand what the new reality is and plan accordingly.” 

“Here's a plan,” George said, her voice deadly calm. “You don't get bizkits tonight. None of the talkers do.” 

Ikiryō narrowed her eyes. “You don't think we're stupid enough to not have brought our own?”

“I don't. You don't think I'm stupid enough not to have searched your rooms while you were all down here and confiscated your extra bizkits?”

“I have some on me.” 

“Do you?” 

Ikiryō frowned but slipped her hand into a hidden pocket, and the frown flashed into a panicked grimace. “How did you get them?”

“That's for me to know. Will you help clean?”

Ikiryō swallowed hard, wrapped her fingers around themselves. “You will have to give us bizkits first.”

“No, I won't.” 

“If we don't have bizkits, your conference falls apart.” 

“That's on you,” George said, lifting her chin. “You can keep it all going here. Or you, and your friends, can all turn zombie and we can try with a new group.”

The other talkers exchanged looks, Adze and Onza whispering to each other. 

“You'd throw this all away for trash?” Ikiryō said angrily. 

“I wouldn't call you trash,” George said sweetly, and Ikiryō growled, the noise startling all of them. Warren moved closer, her hand resting on her machete's handle. 

“Ikiryō,” Adze said quietly. His dark eyes were worried. 

“They won't do it. They would have to mercy all five of us.” Warren glanced at Emily, who was staring with round eyes next to Jermaine. Sketchy and Skeezy hesitated at the door to the kitchen with the food, including bizkits for Emily. She saw Murphy gesture at them, and they disappeared again. 

“You think your five lives are more important to me than Newmerica?” George asked softly. 

No one moved and Warren wasn't sure any of them were even breathing. Adze whispered something in Ikiryō's ear. She grimaced but gave the slightest nod. And then, as though the act hurt her, she bent down to pick up an empty box. “Although you do not care about their lives, I do,” she said arrogantly, and walked the box outside to where the dumpsters were, head held high. 

Warren breathed out slowly and slid her machete all the way back into its sheath. 

The rest of the evening was still as a calm lake. Talkers and humans both cleaned up in silence and although Ikiryō only carried out the one box, Warren considered it a win, just as Murphy had said, and apparently so did George because she didn't force the issue further. Emily and Jermaine ate together while the others cleaned, and their occasional whispers and Emily's stifled laugh were the only ripples in the room. Estes glowered at them from the chair he only occasionally hobbled away from, and Ikiryō ignored them entirely. 

Once the humans and talkers had retired to their floors with their food, the group convened around the furniture that had been stacked neatly in the corner. 

“Damn, Murphy, you called it,” Doc said. 

Murphy shrugged. “I know how pain in the asses work.”

“Newmerica appreciates your help,” George said, patting him on the back. Warren hid a smile at the mix of annoyance and appreciation on his face. “I need to go back to Altura tonight and pick up supplies for tomorrow, and I have to confirm with Finn that he's ready for us.”

“Finn?” Addy said sharply. 

“I'm taking everybody to the farm tomorrow to help harvest. Pandora caused the problem, so the talkers can fix it, and the humans will want food for winter.” 

“I'm not comfortable with you bringing Finn into all this.”

“It's not up to you,” George said. “He agreed.” 

Addy pursed her lips and narrowed her eye, a fighting look Warren was all-too-familiar with. “You'll be there,” Warren said, lightly touching Addy's forearm. “He'll be fine.” 

“He better be.” 

George nodded. “I promise. I should head back. Warren, can you walk with me to the truck, I just want to talk a moment.” 

The others bid George good night and Warren walked with her out into the cool evening air. It was dark, the moon and stars hidden behind the clouds. Only Limbo's light spilled out around them, a warm beacon at their backs. Warren shivered when the wind brushed cold over her arms. It was always warm in Limbo. 

“Did you attack Estes?” George asked when they'd arrived at the truck. 

“I wouldn't say I attacked him.” George gave her a look, so Warren added, “but I did hit him on purpose.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“What do you mean?”

George leaned against the truck. “I mean you found out you were dead less than two weeks ago and now you're kneecapping people.”

“Not people, just Estes.” 

George laughed a little. “I'm sure he deserved it.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I really am sorry about springing that on you. I should have asked you first.” 

“I would have said no.”

“That's why I didn't ask.” George rubbed the back of her neck. “I need you here. I need this to work, Warren. I need them to go back thinking they can work together.” 

“Jermaine and Emily already are.” 

“Will they still think that tomorrow?”

“Let's see what tomorrow brings.” 

“I'll be back as early as I can. It's gonna be a long day.” George pushed off of the truck and climbed inside. “You're sure you're okay?”

“Yes,” Warren said, and they both knew she was lying. George pursed her lips but nodded, shutting the door. She mouthed 'thank you' from behind the window and the truck started with a cough. Warren watched George drive away until she couldn't see the taillights, and then she stayed a few minutes longer, the wind blowing across her skin until she felt as cold outside as she did in. 

“You coming back?” Addy called from the doorway, startling Warren. 

She could still leave. The dark night beyond Limbo called her, promising endless miles of anonymity and quiet. Promising relief from the weight of everyone's expectations. 

“Warren?” 

But it also did not hold the answers she needed first about Murphy. They were the only thing that stirred up the emptiness, and she had to settle them before she could rest. 

“Yeah, I'm coming,” she said. 

Turning her back on the starless sky, Warren followed Addy back into Limbo, shivered when she stepped back into its warmth. The main room was empty now, even Murphy having disappeared. 

“Let me take your watch tonight,” Addy said. “These are such short rotations and I'll be awake anyway.” Warren started to protest, but Addy gently nudged her towards the stairway to the rooms. “Get some rest. Tomorrow night you can take mine.” 

“Thanks,” Warren said. She followed the pull to Murphy's door. Each stair up made her feel more herself, as though her body was reviving. It was like being with him grounded her, filled the emptiness that her death had left behind. Beyond even answers, she wanted that feeling one more time. 

Still, at his door she knocked tentatively. For long seconds there was nothing and she had time to wonder if she should just let it be when he opened the door. He'd taken off his jacket and tie and his vest hung open, the top of his shirt unbuttoned. She'd caught him in the middle of undressing, and seeing him this way felt casually intimate. His shoulders pulled up when he saw it was her, and that barely controlled wanting swarmed back over his face. Her heart beat fast in her chest. 

“Warren.” 

“Murphy. Can I come in?”

His fingers tightened on the door, but he stepped back and let her by. “Of course. Mi casa es su casa.” 

Warren stepped inside his room for the first time and looked around. It was well-furnished, the wood all polished and gleaming, the fabrics rich and colorful and soft. It wasn't as ostentatious as she would have expected from him; very little gold, and only one mirror in this front room. It struck her mostly as inviting and peaceful, somewhere the busy head of Limbo could rest. When he shut the door she felt cocooned from the world. There were three other doors on the other walls, all closed, and she wondered if his blends lived in this space with him. 

“Well?” he asked, but it wasn't impatient, just curious. 

“Nice casa.” Warren brushed her hand down a throw pillow. It was clean and smooth, a gentle flower pattern. It made her think of her home in Missouri. 

“Thanks. The blends prepped the furniture before I showed up, but I decorated.” He walked over to a decanter filled with amber liquid. “Thirsty?” 

“Whiskey?” He nodded. “I'll have a little.” 

He poured some into a round tumblr and handed it over. “Aren't you supposed to be on watch right now?”

“Addy took over for me. She said I should rest.” Warren took a drink, felt it burn smooth down her throat. 

“Maybe she's right.” 

“I will,” Warren said. She took another swallow of whiskey to shore up her resolve and set the glass down. “I want to talk to you first.”

Murphy rolled his glass nervously between his hands. “Oh?”

“You've been acting weird all day.”

“Have I?” She watched him throw back the drink, the way the muscles in his throat moved as he swallowed. She wanted to kiss her way up that long line of red skin, the need for it coalescing as an ache between her legs. The thoughts themselves weren't new, but finally having sex had given them a tangible reality she could no longer ignore. 

“You've been avoiding me since the start of the building competition.” 

Murphy pressed his lips into a tight, thin line. “I didn't want to be a distraction.” 

She tilted her head, tried to understand what he wasn't saying. “I don't believe that. You have no problem distracting me.” 

“Turning over a new leaf, I guess.” 

“I don't believe that either.” 

“Roberta-” she stepped towards him, and whatever else he was going to say died on his lips and his multi-colored eyes were like lasers, burning through her with their intensity. “Don't ask me this.” 

Warren moved closer, becoming aware of the rise and fall of her chest, of the smell of rain on the air coming in from outside a slightly opened window. “Why not?” Why was her breathing so loud? Why was his? They were just talking. But she felt more exposed in this moment than when he'd been deep inside her. She paused a few steps away; it felt dangerous to move any closer. “What's going to happen if I do?”

It was Murphy who closed the final distance between them, until they were a hand's width apart. “I'll tell you the truth,” he said hoarsely. 

Warren's breath caught in her throat. They shouldn't do this; not now, or here, or ever. But when he brought his palm to her face, rubbed his thumb over her cheek, the sweetness of it made her feel weak. She should tell him to stop. She should escape before the spark Addy had talked about became an inferno and burned down both their lives. The apocalypse did not put out fires, it only made them more destructive. She could still turn around leave. 

She leaned into the warmth of his hand. “I need to know.” 

He made a soft, agonized noise and his hand slipped to the back of her head and pulled her in closer to kiss her hard and desperate. She heard every word of his heart in the slide of his lips and tongue over hers and when he broke the kiss, they stared at each other in the dim light of his room knowing what was coming next would hit like a tornado. She could see the fear in his eyes, the need that laid him bare while he waited for her response. 

She knew he would wait for her forever if she asked him. But, god, she needed him, too. She'd thought she knew what the I love you meant at the bakery, understood now how much they both had been hiding from themselves. 

Warren nodded a little. His face had grown tight with anticipation and he exhaled now, a small breath of quiet in the eye of a storm. Then without warning he picked her up in his arms and carried her into one of the other rooms. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing breathlessly. 

“What I've wanted to do for seven years,” he said, laying her down on a soft bed. Everything here shimmered in the warm lamplight: the red and black bed, the wine-colored curtains, the rack of...interesting looking sex toys. Murphy paused, one knee on the bed, and followed her line of sight and then looked back down at her. 

“We'll have to try those sometime,” she said, and was rewarded with his deep, pleased assent. He kissed her again while his fingers tugged at her clothes, found her skin underneath and pressed like hot brands at her waist. 

“Later,” he promised, lips touching hers. She liked feeling the brush of his beard as he talked. “For now, just this.” He undid her pants and slid them off and when she moved to help with the rest he gently brushed her hands away. “Let me do this,” he said, asking permission. 

Her desire was an endless ache inside her, burning her up, yearning to be filled. But she fisted her hands in the smooth sheets and tried to let him set the pace. 

Murphy slowly rubbed a hand up her leg, to her stomach, lifting her shirt and pressing soft kisses to her belly. She moved against him and his thumbs rubbed slow circles around her hipbones, both gentle and firmly holding her down at the same time. He followed his fingers with his lips and she gasped. He pressed kisses back down her legs, behind her knees, in the soft spot at her ankle where she felt his tongue against the thin skin. She wondered fleetingly what it would be like if he bit her there and flushed. It felt like hours as he made his way back up again, finally pulling her shirt off, undoing her bra. Her own breaths were loud in the quiet of his bedroom. 

“You still have all your clothes,” she panted. 

“This might surprise you, but this isn't about me,” he said, smiling a little, and then he moved back down between her legs and showed her. Unlike the first time, this time he was restrained, tender. She moaned and felt his fingers tighten on her legs, but he kept a pace that was slow, calm, and persistent. When Warren shifted, Murphy moved with her, and when she cried out as her orgasm burst like a thundercloud, he stayed with her until she gripped his shirt at the shoulders; then he lifted his head and met her eyes across the expanse of her own body. “I'm not done yet,” she said between breaths, and he grinned at her. 

“Not even close,” he agreed. He pulled off his vest and let her help with the buttons on his shirt while she kissed down the long line of his neck to his chest and tasted the vibration of his appreciative groan with her lips. 

As soon as his shirt was off he urged her back down, pulled off the rest of his clothes and laid them neatly on a nearby chair while she admired his lean frame. Like the rest of them, he bore his share of apocalypse scars, though none as obvious and deep as the bites that had brought them together in the first place. He didn't give her long to look as he climbed back on the bed and slid inside her while she whimpered in pleasure. 

He took his time, moving in and out steady and unhurried, making her ache with everything she wanted that he was giving so slowly. He trailed curious fingers over all the parts of her body and watched her response, teasing longer at the points where her breath caught or went shaky. She ran her nails down his back and he shuddered; she lifted urgently towards him, silently begging him to move faster, harder, to imprint her body with the bruise of his hands so she'd feel them when the emptiness returned. Murphy's fingers tangled in the pillow near her hair but he stayed tender and adamantly unmoved, sliding at the same persistent pace, though sweat dripped down his nose and back. His every movement asked her over and over: let me do this for you. Finally, she let him. 

Instead of controlling it, of letting her desperate fear set the tone, she started to move with him, pulled him down enough to bite gently at his ear and when their bodies pressed together she could feel his heart racing with hers. Then suddenly it was like she could feel him, too, the deep core that she was tempted to call his soul but could just have been his blood singing loudly to her, calling her, exposing all the words she knew he couldn't say. His ecstasy, his fear, the loud drumbeat of his love all filled her and she wrapped around him as he thrust hard and fast and whispered something into her hair she couldn't hear but understood anyway. It didn't matter that she had no blood left, that she had died months ago, had killed more people than she'd ever managed to save; here in the strong band of his arms she was just Roberta Warren, a woman who was loved. 

Murphy pushed back up and she met his electric stare. He was glimmering with sweat, his face taut and hungry with the same need that careened through her. She couldn't have looked away if she'd wanted to, pinned beneath his longing. She felt fire building in her, roaring through the emptiness and burning away the edges of everything she'd known, the safety she'd wrapped around herself. Warren grabbed his arms and held on as the light and heat consumed her, as he cried out and followed her in. 

When the light behind her eyes dimmed again, Warren breathed out shakily, laid her head back on the pillow and looked up at the wood-paneled ceiling as Murphy collapsed on top of her. She shifted and he lifted his head, looked at her plaintively. “You don't have to go,” he said, his voice quiet. 

“I'm not,” she said. “You're just heavy.” 

He looked surprised and then amused and he shifted a little so he was half-off of her, watching her from the pillow. His eyes crinkled, wary, uncertain. “So,” he said. 

“We don't have to talk.”

Murphy exhaled, but pushed on, determined. “You can stay here tonight if you want.” 

She touched his hair, brushed away the long strands covering one eye. “Okay.” 

“Okay?”

“Okay,” she repeated, and smiled. 

“Okay,” he said. “Bathroom is the first door on the left out there.” 

“What's through the other door?”

“My closet.” He shifted fully onto his side and looked at her. “This room is the sex dungeon, if that's what you were thinking.” 

She snorted, turned on her side to face him, could feel his breath blowing gently on her nose. How many nights had they slept near each other around a fire, or just on the cold, hard floor of some broken-down building? This was the closest she had ever been to him, even winter nights when the whole team had huddled together under blankets to keep warm. “I thought it was where Wesson and the other blend - the woman?”

“Melody.”

“I thought that's where they lived.”

“No, I need my own space.” 

“And yet here I am,” Warren murmured, and somehow Murphy's red skin turned redder. She lifted an eyebrow. “Alvin Murphy are you _blushing_?” 

“Leave me alone,” he muttered, turning on his back and pillowing his head on his hands. “I'm a complicated man.” 

“No shit,” she said and he smirked. 

Warren lifted up on one elbow and touched his scars gently, tracing their patterns while his chest moved faster with each brush of her fingers. She'd never cared either way about the bites, had usually been more concerned about the blood behind them than anything, but now she thought about him falling under a pack of zombies, of how he had died nine years ago and never even known it. 

Murphy took her hand in his and she startled, looked up at him. “Everything all right?” he asked softly. 

“Yeah, I just,” Warren curled her hand in his. “You died.”

“I did.”

“And you kept going.”

“Not like I had a lot of choice. First Hammond, then you. You're kind of a taskmaster.”

Warren laughed a little. “When Sun Mei told you that you'd been dead, didn't everything change?”

“Everything?” He brushed his fingertips over her shoulder, down between her breasts, circling her nipples one at a time without touching, until she was breathing hard again, too. “Not really,” he finally said. “I wasn't the best person before I became whatever-I-am.” 

“You're not the best person now,” Warren said, teasing. 

But he looked seriously at her. “I'm not.” He was quiet another breath, his eyes intense. “Are you here just because you died?”

“What?”

“Here, with me. The sex, the...everything. Would any of this have happened if you hadn't found out you were dead?”

Warren's tongue was thick in her mouth, her heart a lead weight in her chest. She didn't know how to answer that without hurting him, but his eyes shuttered at her lack of answer anyway and he nodded. 

“I thought so.” 

“Hey,” she said, pressing her palm flat against his stomach, keeping him from turning away. “What does it matter? I'm here now.” 

“I would have been here either way,” he said, before rolling out of the bed. “I'm gonna go take a shower.” He paused in the doorway, looked back at her with such hope and hurt that it made her heart stutter. The lamplight lined Murphy so he was glowing red and gold and Warren abruptly remembered that Lucifer had been an angel first. From the depths of long forgotten Catholic school memories she recalled what the name had meant: light-bringer. “But...you don't have to leave,” he said, and then shut the door behind him. 

“Fuck,” Warren said quietly. She may have told him she'd loved him before she knew she was dead, but they both knew that they had only started having sex because she had died and hadn't been able to deal with the hole that news had left inside her. Part of the reason she'd shown up here tonight was because she'd wanted the life that being with him brought her. She didn't know if love alone would have driven her up those steps when it came wrapped in so much fear. 

She thought of Cooper, of the quiet life he promised her. A different choice. A safer one. He would be easy to go back to; she'd already lost him once and survived just fine. Warren could still make that choice now, and save herself the heartache that was certain to follow. 

There was one thing she knew about the apocalypse: it was a sadistic bastard. It would gleefully watch her and Murphy be ground down to ashes rather than let them have genuine joy. If she truly loved Murphy – and she did, she realized, her heart expanding and then contracting like her body wasn't enough to contain it – how could she have come here seeking anything from him except goodbye? 

Warren swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, looked at the closed door. It didn't matter how they got here, she could convince him of that because it was true. What mattered was what was finally out in the open and staring them both in the face. If she stayed here tonight, it would be an unspoken commitment to trying to fight back against whatever these treacherous times threw their way; Warren was so tired of fighting alone, wasn't sure if Murphy would be brave enough to fight with her. She could save them having to find out, if she could be brave enough now. 

There were still two more days of George's conference, but she couldn't wait, couldn't bear what it would cost her to stay. She would leave instead, buoyed and burdened with everything she'd shared with Murphy, and she would make the easy choice for both of them. 

Warren dressed quickly, poked her head out the door to find Murphy was still in the shower and sighed in relief. She was afraid to have to explain where she was going, that she'd lose her nerve if she had to look him in the eye. Instead she found pen and paper and wrote a brief note, leaving it by the aces on the table by the door. Telling him something had to be better than just disappearing without a trace; she owed him that much. Warren glanced around the room, taking it all in, and when the shower shut off, she closed the door quickly behind her.


	16. Chapter 16

The hardest part was how unsurprised Murphy was when he found she was gone. He should have swallowed down his doubts and kept his damn mouth shut. What had he expected her to say? She never would have had sex with him in the first place if she hadn't been knocked over by the news of her new un-life, they both knew that. Why couldn't it be enough that they were here at all? 

The sheets still smelled like her, so he slept fitfully on the couch, uncomfortable inside and out. He was awake to see the gray light of dawn. 

Dawn meant he had to get up, get dressed, and pretend like his insides weren't shriveled and burned out. He thought briefly about faking sickness. He hadn't been sick since before the apocalypse, but none of them understood how his body worked, maybe he could make something up. 

Instead he dressed in his best suit, a crisp green number that shimmered when the light hit it. They were all going down to the farm, but he could stay here and watch Limbo. Maybe he'd take a quick jaunt to Marion's bakery to check on the cure and Wesson and the others, remind himself of everything he still had. Maybe seeing Warren wouldn't break him in two, and he could figure out how to be okay. 

As he was leaving, he noticed the note next to the door and froze. It had his name on it in Warren's abrupt handwriting. Murphy picked it up like it was a live snake, held it at a distance and gingerly opened it to read. 

_I'm leaving for both of us. It's for the best._ And then, much more faintly like she wasn't sure she should write it: _I do love you._

Murphy blinked uncertainly. Three sentences and he was on an emotional roller coaster. He focused on the last four words, the promise they contained, but swiftly strangled all hope. He should never have left her alone thinking he wouldn't forgive her everything just to have her near. She was going to see Cooper instead, he could feel it in his bones. But this time Murphy would let her come back on her own. Although even if she did, it didn't mean anything for him. It was always safest to assume the worst. That was how he'd survived the apocalypse and the whole of his life this far, and it was how he was going to get through this when it felt like the air was too jagged to choke down his swollen throat. 

He looked at himself in the mirror by the door. “Warren is gone and she's not coming back to you,” he said out loud, so he couldn't run from the words. His voice was high and unstable. “Deal with it.” Murphy smiled brightly, straightened his tie, and ignored the way his heart was screaming.

**********

Doc was the only one awake when Murphy came downstairs.

“You're up early,” Doc said. “Ready for another fun day of Newmerica Family Feud?” 

Murphy kept his smile up like a shield. “Absolutely not. But at least I don't have to go to the farms with you poor bastards.” 

“I wouldn't bet on that. George is going to want all hands on deck, even your manicured red ones.” 

“Someone has to stay and watch Limbo.” 

“Let Sketchy and Skeezy do it. Give them a little time alone together.”

“You expect me to leave those two here alone? Be serious.” 

Doc considered it. “Yeah you're probably right. They would definitely have destroyed it all before we got back. Thank god they can't have children. Can you imagine what a kid of theirs would be like?”

Murphy shuddered. “Worse than the zompocalypse.” 

“And no cure.” Doc gestured for Murphy to sit at the table with him, so Murphy did, turning a chair to straddle it and crossing his arms over the top. “How's the cure going?” Doc asked, dropping his voice conspiratorially. 

“Slowly. We're building a lab now and after this mess is all over I have to start figuring out what Sun Mei knew.” 

“Are you gonna eat her brain?” Murphy just looked at him, and Doc blanched but nodded. “I figured. What do raw brains taste like?”

“Kind of creamy and musky. They're good.” 

“If you say so.” 

They sat quietly for a minute, Doc tapping out a distantly familiar pattern with his fingers on the table. Though Murphy resisted, all he could think about was Warren. What did she mean it was for the best? Would she ever return? The words _I do love you_ flashed every time he shut his eyes. Why had he asked that stupid question last night? 

“Hey, uh, Doc,” Murphy said. The other man looked up, curious. “Do you think, uh, is it possible that...” Murphy cleared his throat. “Does it matter how someone ends up somewhere, if they're happy where they are?”

“You mean do the ends justify the means? Before the apocalypse, I would have said no way, that all that matters are the means. How we get somewhere makes the ends what they are. But nowadays?” Doc shrugged. “I don't know, man. I think the means still matter, but if the end is good, maybe they don't matter as much as I thought. Not a lot of good happens in the zombie apocalypse. We gotta take what we can get, even if it comes to us in a kind of shitty way. Course, I also believe if the only way to get the good end is to hurt other people, it's not really a good end, so maybe I do still think the means matter. Does that help?”

“I...guess?” 

“I haven't had breakfast yet, cut me some slack on the philosophical ramblings. Why are you asking anyway?” 

If this had been even a month ago, he might have spilled everything to Doc, but he didn't want to burden the man before they'd gotten back to being friends yet. “Nothing important,” Murphy said instead, which he knew Doc wouldn't buy, but would respect. “Can I get you some breakfast?” 

“Nah, I'll wait for Sketchy's veggie omelette. I don't know how he does it, but he's a surprisingly good cook.” 

Addy, Red, and 10k emerged from their room and waved to Doc, and Addy nodded slightly at Murphy. She glanced around the empty room and frowned a little. “Warren's not up yet?” 

Doc shook his head, “haven't seen her.”

“She did seem tired,” Addy said. 

Murphy knew he should speak up, tell them that she left, but he didn't know how to say it without avoiding all of the inevitable questions. He'd have to answer them eventually, but that was future Murphy's problem. 

10k and Red sat down at a nearby table, and Addy came to sit next to Doc. “Sketchy cook yet?”

“Nope, still waiting.” 

“Think he'll make those honey rolls again tonight?”

“Ohhhh those were so good. Murphy, you should hire him here as a chef.”

“I already have Marion.”

“Yeah but she only makes bizkits. You could have a real human diner again.” Doc sighed dreamily. “Eggs on toast, hot coffee, maybe some flapjacks.” 

“You're killing me, Doc,” Addy groaned. “Someone go wake Sketchy up.”

“No need, Adessa, I'm already awake,” he said, appearing from the kitchen door. They all jumped in surprise. 

“Seriously, quit doing that,” Murphy grumbled. But when Sketchy set a tall stack of pancakes in the middle of their table, even he found himself drooling. 

“You are an angel from on high,” Doc squealed, grabbing a pancake and then dropping it on the table. “Ooh! Hot! Ow!” It didn't seem to stop him and he yelped with every bite he took. 

Murphy let Addy and Doc eat down their pile, saw 10k and Red making short work of theirs. Skeezy appeared from the talkers' room and gave Sketchy a good morning kiss. 

“Pancakes!” he said. “Damn I wish I could still enjoy real food.” 

“Fresh bizkits in the kitchen for you, my little undead muffin,” Sketchy cooed at him. 

“Someone should wake up Warren,” Doc said around a mouthful of food, “before these are all gone.” 

“Oh don't worry about her,” Sketchy said. “She left a little while ago.” 

Addy lowered the pancake she'd been chowing down on. “What?”

“I came out last night to prep the batter – it tastes better when it's had some time to sit – and I saw her bustling out of here. Took some car and sped off.” 

“We had a watch all night, how is it possible we missed her?”

“You may not be aware of this, but Limbo is a labyrinthine building. Lots of doors to weird places. She didn't pass through this room at all as far as I saw.” 

“Well that's gonna complicate our watches,” Doc said, but Addy waved him off. 

“Why didn't you stop her?”

Sketchy shrugged. “She was moving fast and quick, I don't think she wanted to be seen. Not my business to stop that woman, not if I don't want to become a talker myself. No offense, Vernon.”

“None taken,” Skeezy said. 

Addy turned her deadly glare on Murphy. “Did you do this?”

“Me?” He dredged up his best innocently offended face. “No, I didn't make her leave.” The best lies were mostly truth. 

It didn't seem to matter to Addy. “Do you know where she went? Is she okay?”

Murphy cursed his past self for putting this on him. “I'm sure she's fine,” he said.

“She's a capable woman, Addy, she'll be okay,” Doc said, stepping in and inadvertently saving Murphy more trouble. “This has been a tough time on her and after that business with Estes yesterday, she probably just needed a break. Maybe she went ahead to the farm.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“Maybe she likes night driving.” 

Addy turned her glare on Doc and he ducked his head a little. “She better be okay,” she said sternly to both men, and they nodded contritely. 

The sound of an engine roared up and they all turned to the door, but it was George who walked through. 

“What happened?” she said when she stepped inside and saw their faces. 

“Warren's gone,” Addy said. 

“Gone? Where?”

“We don't know. Did you ask her to go to the farm early?”

“No. Shit.” George grimaced. “I pushed too hard yesterday, I shouldn't have done that. She's just so reliable I thought it would be all right. We can make do without her for today I guess, but we'll need everybody to come to the farm to keep an eye out. Lots of space there, lots of ways this can all go wrong.” 

“I thought maybe I could-” Murphy started, but when he felt everyone glaring at him, he finished, “change my clothes before we leave.” 

“Good plan,” George said. “Sketchy, Skeezy, get everybody awake and fed, we don't have time to waste today if we want to make it back here before too late tonight.” 

Murphy left the last pancakes for the others and went back to his room. He eyed the note Warren had left, tucked it into a drawer in his bedroom in case someone came by, and tried hard to ignore the glass of whiskey she'd left, the sound of her moans echoing in the empty room. He focused instead on getting dressed more appropriately for farm work. Murphy settled on black jeans, a black button-down shirt with no tie, and his leather Limbo jacket. He wanted to wear his spiked boots but decided on a less decorative pair instead. Who knew what kind of muck they'd be working in. He looked out the window, at the emergency ladder he could fling out and escape down. They didn't really need him. His blends needed him; the cure needed him. George just needed another pair of eyes to babysit recalcitrant citizens. He zipped up his jacket and walked out the door anyway, to Doc and the other people he'd once considered friends. By the time Murphy had changed and come back downstairs, the food was gone and the room was full of people. 

George nodded at him and then said to the group, “let's load up, you all can eat on the road. Murphy, you drive the talkers in the van Warren came here in and take Doc with you. I'll take the humans and Addy with me. Red, 10k, you take a separate vehicle with Sketchy and Skeezy.” 

“Couples' car!” Skeezy said delightedly, but Red and 10k both stared hard at the floor. 

Doc stood next to Murphy. “Wonder why she didn't put the talkers and the anti-talkers in cars together.”

“Probably wanted to avoid bloodshed in such a small space.” 

Doc nodded. “Fair.” 

“Where's Lieutenant Warren?” Estes asked, unmoving. 

“She was needed elsewhere,” George said. “Hopefully that means no more accidents for you today.”

Estes grumbled and limped for the doors. 

“What is she doing?” Ikiryō asked. 

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, unless you're ready to become an equal citizen of Newmerica.” 

“Nice cover,” Murphy whispered to George as he walked by out to the van. 

He and Doc herded the talkers into an old beat-up van that he guessed used to be painted blue but had faded to a dull, scratched blue-gray. It started when he turned the key, though, and drove smoothly enough on the balding tires. He made a mental note to make sure Limbo's garage had extra tires stocked up. 

About fifteen minutes into it, Ikiryō asked, “do you crave brains, Mr. Murphy?” 

He caught her curious look in the rearview mirror, frowned. “No.”

“We have wondered much about you and your blends, but you keep to Limbo, except for the recent unpleasantries.” 

“So that's what they're calling it,” he said dryly.

“We thought you may sequester yourself due to needing brains,” she continued, ignoring him. “But that does not seem to be true.” 

“I can eat them, but I also can enjoy a good meal.”

“It sounds like the best of both worlds.” 

Murphy shrugged. “I like it.” 

“Why don't you make everyone a blend?” 

Doc coughed so loudly Murphy swerved in the empty road. “Sorry,” Doc muttered. 

“Well?” Ikiryō asked patiently. 

“Uh.” Murphy glanced at her again, then at Doc, who was watching him with careful eyes. “I don't get to choose for other people how they live in the apocalypse. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

“Even if it is the best way?”

“Being a blend is great but there are...side effects.” 

“Really?” Ikiryō leaned forward, interested. “What are they?”

“They get very me-centered.” 

“Selfish?”

“No, I mean me. As in me, personally. Not everyone is into that.” Doc snorted. 

“They are completely free from fear – they know they won't turn, but they also won't die like a human. Perhaps they are just grateful.” 

Murphy had wanted to believe that was all it was back in Murphytown, that they all laughed too loud at his jokes and spent their time doing every thing he asked out of gratitude. Now that he had time and distance and another chance with his blends, he knew it went deeper than that. He wasn't actively making them like or even worship him, but the blood connection paved the way. 10k and Merch had proven it could be fought off, though, if they hated him enough. The blends had to naturally like him to be as attached as they were. “It's complicated,” was all he told Ikiryō. 

“Can you make talkers into blends?” 

“I don't think it works the same anymore. That was a one-time special offer. With Black Rain and all the shit I've been through since I made the blends, I don't think I can make any more.” 

“But you haven't tried?”

“No.”

“Is Lieutenant Warren one of your blends?” 

Murphy tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “No. She's something else entirely.” 

“I was told she had your blood, though.” 

“I see why they call you talkers,” Murphy said between clenched teeth. “I'm not going to talk about Warren.” He felt Doc looking questioningly at him and ignored that, too. “Listen, lady, the blends are my business and Warren is her business and your business is figuring out that without Newmerica none of us have a chance for a semi-decent life in the rest of the apocalypse, so why don't you worry about how you're going to get your little cult back on the boat instead of paddling around looking for islands you'll never reach?” 

He glanced in the mirror when she didn't respond, saw she was sitting back in her seat, hands folded neatly in her lap, a calculating look on her face. _Great._ He pressed down on the gas and they sped into the morning towards the farm.

*********

Finn came out to greet them as Murphy pulled the van up and parked. Doc and Finn exchanged hugs – of course they did, Murphy thought, everybody liked Doc – and Finn approached Murphy with his hand out for a shake. Murphy considered, briefly, just ignoring him but the man was smiling so wide and friendly it would have felt like ignoring a puppy. A very handsome puppy, but a puppy nonetheless.

“Mr. Murphy,” Finn said, shaking his hand vigorously. “Pleasure to meet you. I've heard a lot about you from Marion.” 

“You have?”

“Oh yeah, she talks about you all the time. All good things, don't worry.” Finn added a clap on the back and Murphy found he was smiling. “Thanks for giving her and her family a safe place. She's a nice lady.” 

“Well, yeah, of course.” Murphy tried to look humble. “Just trying to help.” 

“It's appreciated.” Finn turned to the talkers. “Pleasure to meet you all as well. We're desperate for hands to finish the harvest, do some fixing of some of the structures. You'll be helping Newmerica make it through the winter.” 

Adze, Emily, and Onza all smiled, moved forward to shake Finn's hand and introduce themselves. _Son of a bitch_ , Murphy thought. _This dumb plan is working._

They killed time milling around, getting a tour of the immediate area while they waited for the others to arrive. Sketchy came roaring up next in one of Limbo's cars and George followed shortly after with her own van. When Estes stepped out, looked distastefully around the farm, Murphy noted the way Finn turned from puppy to wolf. 

Addy intercepted Finn, gave him a hard kiss and whispered something that soothed whatever angry beast had been aroused. George followed, shook Finn's hand.

“Thank you for letting us come to your farm,” she said. 

“As I was telling the others, we need the help. Sure you can only stay the day? We have plenty of space for folks to sleep, and enough food and bizkit supplies.” 

“Honestly,” George said quietly, “let's see how the day goes. How do you want to split us up?”

Finn scanned the group, seemed to do some counting. “Eighteen of you, that's a good number. Let's do three groups, that will give us one for threshing, one for winnowing and storing, and one for fixing the granary so we have someplace safe to store it. I can move between the groups, make sure everything's going all right.” 

“Okay.” George studied the group. “Here's how we'll split it. Group one will be Jermaine, Dev, Emily, and Onza. Sketchy and Skeezy, you'll be with them, too. Group two is Caxton, Adze, Linda, and Bill with Doc and Addy supporting. Group three, everybody else.” 

The group one team all looked happy and immediately congregated towards each other. Group two looked more resigned, but civil, gathering near each other and acknowledging each other's presence. 

The last group all stood where they were looking different shades of miserable and angry. Finn went to the first group, shook hands with the humans he'd missed, and directed them to start work on fixing the granary silo.

“George,” Murphy hissed, waving her over while Finn pointed out tools and supplies. “Are you sure these are the best groups?”

“We've had two days of avoiding conflict,” she murmured. “It's time to push it a little.”

“When we're all dirty and sweaty and have tools in our hands?”

George grinned. “Keeps everybody on their toes.” 

Finn approached group two next. “You're gonna love this,” he said. “Especially with two of you injured.” He nodded at Linda's hand and Bill's arm. “You get to winnow what's already been harvested and threshed. Do any of you know what that is?” Bill and Doc both nodded. “Excellent. Our combine is broken so you get to do it the old-fashioned way: throwing it in the air and letting the wind blow away the chaff.” 

“Are you serious?” 

“Yep. They did it this way for thousands of years. Works surprisingly well, it just takes awhile, which is why we haven't finished it all yet. Supplies are there, and the best wind is over by the house.” The group walked off, which left just group three, who still had not gotten any closer than five feet near each other except for George and Murphy. 

“What terrible activity do you have in store for us?” Estes asked snidely. 

Finn smiled, but it wasn't friendly. “You get to thresh. As I said, our combine isn't working so it all has to be done by hand.”

“What is threshing?” Murphy asked. 

“Loosening the harvested wheat so it can be winnowed to the grains.”

“And how do you do that?” Estes said. 

“By beating it with a board. It takes about an hour a bushel.”

“How much is a bushel?” Murphy asked nervously. 

“About 50-60 pounds of wheat.”

“How much wheat do you have?”

“Enough to keep you busy.” Finn was all teeth and bright eyes. “Come on, I'll show where the wheat is. Grab a board from the building supplies on your way. Something you can swing for a long, long time.” 

Murphy glared at George and she shrugged apologetically. “Next time I get to pick my group,” he told her before searching for a light-weight piece of wood. 

Ikiryō and Estes didn't move. 

“Come on,” George said. “Everybody pitches in here. Especially you, Estes.” 

“Me?”

“Pandora and her followers caused most of this damage. It's up to you to make it right.” He grumbled but followed Murphy to the wood pile, his limp more pronounced than it had been that morning. Murphy rolled his eyes. “You, too, Ikiryō. Same rules as yesterday applies: no work, no bizkits.” 

“Petty,” Ikiryō said bitterly, but it was enough to get her moving as well. Once they were all armed with boards, Finn led them to a barn filled with harvested wheat. 

“You need to get through all of this if you can. Some of it is already starting to go bad, so anything with mold just throw out to the side and we'll deal with later. You have to beat the grain hard for awhile to loosen the seed enough. We'll have you work for an hour or so and then I'll take some to the winnowers to make sure you've done enough. Any questions?” The group stared balefully at him. “Great!” Finn said cheerfully. He paused at the door to the barn. “Oh and watch out for zombie mice, they're a problem,” he threw out before disappearing.

**********

For a long time they were all quiet. George, Red, and 10k made the most progress and were all clearly working something out with the way they ferociously whacked their wheat piles. Ikiryō and Estes were more half-hearted, but at least they participated. Murphy worked on his own pile, trying to keep up a steady, almost monotonous rhythm somewhere in-between the others. It was hypnotic work, the creak of his leather jacket as he lifted his board, the solid thwack when he brought it down on the wheat, those two sounds over and over like the chug of a train and all around him the same but in syncopated time.

When Finn came back, Murphy realized he hadn't thought about Warren at all while he'd been working. _I do love you_ washed over him anew and he felt the pain like a fresh board to the chest. He pulled off his jacket while Finn examined their wheat. Finn passed over Ikiryō's and Estes' piles with a terse “needs more” and bundled up the rest into a wheelbarrow.

“These look good,” Finn said. “Nice work! I'll be back in awhile for more, just pile what you have done by the door if it gets to be too much.” 

“This is pointless,” Ikiryō said after Finn had left. “He didn't even take any of mine.” 

“Then work harder,” Murphy said. 

“Why? So your human butler can make pancakes I won't eat?”

“No, so my talker chef can make bizkits you will.” 

“Even if it were for human food only,” George said, “you should still help. A community survives because we help each other even when it doesn't directly help us.” 

“So Newmerica is going to rely on goodwill? In a resource-starved apocalypse population?”

“We won't be resource-starved if we work together,” George said firmly. “United we stand, divided we turn isn't just some slogan. It's a way of life. And it applies to all of us.” 

“What will you do when others refuse to help? You can't hold food and bizkits from everyone.” 

“We'll convince them to help or they'll have to leave, survive on their own.” 

“Sounds like you'll need an army.” Ikiryō was still, her board held down at her side, but she felt dangerous anyway. “An army needs a war to fight.” 

“There won't be an army. We'll escort people out and leave them with supplies for a couple of days.”

“And if they come back? If they keep coming back? What if they find others who agree with them, and they all come back at once?” she continued without pausing. “What if an army of talkers strides to Altura's gates and demands to be heard? Oh, my apologies, that's how Roman Estes ended up here.” 

“Why can't you see that there is more that binds us than separates us?” George said, stepping forward. Murphy gripped his board tighter. “You're not better just because you had your ear bitten off. Newmerica can help you, can help all the talkers. Most of them see that. Why can't you?” 

Ikiryō leaned towards George, her body trembling. “We don't need humans. Humans think we're wild animals, ready to go feral at a moment's notice.”

“Don't prove them right,” George said quietly. 

“Maybe we should. You think the problem is we'll turn into mindless zombies. What should keep you up at night is that we are zombies. Smart ones who can plan, who know that we are stronger and more fearless than humans will ever be. Stop trying to hide what we are by calling us talkers. Just call us zombies. We should be proud of it.” 

The room was still, like the air had been sucked out of the barn and all that was left were their frozen bodies and the wheat dust dancing in the sunlight that filtered weakly through the doorway. 

Then Ikiryō screamed and brought her board up, swinging fast and hard for George's head. George ducked out of the way but it caught her in the shoulder and sent her sprawling to the ground on a shout. Ikiryō turned for the door, ready to run and Murphy did the first thing that came to mind: he threw his board at her, smacking her solidly across the back and knocking her down. 10k and Red ran past him and threw themselves at her, grappling her arms and legs while she kept screaming. 

“Need some help here!” 10k shouted and Murphy hurried over, found a wildly flailing leg and pinned it down. Ikiryō kicked him in the face with her other foot and he grunted and grabbed that one, too, while Red and 10k held down her arms. She bucked and fought like a wild bull, screaming so loudly it echoed out into the distance and brought the other groups running. The winnowing group was closest and when they ran up George was coming out of the barn, hands held out to try to stop them, but Adze and Caxton pushed past and tried to yank 10k and Red off of Ikiryō. 

“Stop, everyone stop!” George shouted futilely. 

Ikiryō freed her leg and kicked Murphy in the head again, harder this time, and he lost his grip on her entirely. Caxton was on him after that, shoving him down and punching him sloppily in the face. Apparently the building group had arrived by then because he saw Dev yank Caxton back and away before Doc dragged Murphy to standing. 

Murphy blinked through the fuzziness in his head. There were bodies everywhere, fists and boards flying, people shouting, falling down, and struggling back up. Sketchy was pummeling Bill who had Skeezy in a chokehold. And underneath it all Ikiryō was laughing, a chilling peal that danced unrepentantly under the drumbeat of fists and feet and wood connecting. 

Murphy saw Estes using the shadows to flee and ran after him. The other man saw Murphy coming an instant too late, and Murphy tackled him to the ground, regretting the move when they slammed into the hard-packed dirt. Estes threw an elbow backwards, landing squarely in the middle of Murphy's chest, but he gasped and kidney-punched Estes in return, earning a pained howl. He rolled Estes facedown and laid on him, avoiding Estes' wild, pointy elbows. 

“Hey, someone!” Murphy shouted. “I need backup!” 

Estes shifted, threw his head back and smacked Murphy in the nose and it was Murphy's turn to yell in pain. He slid enough off of Estes that the man squirmed loose, but Murphy grabbed his foot before he could get away, tripping him back down to the ground. Then someone else came flying in from the other side and landed on top of Estes. It was George and she delivered a series of punches so quickly and brutally that Estes curled up into a ball to protect himself. Murphy wiped the blood from his nose and staggered to his feet, kicked Estes in the side in-between George's fists and tried not to fall over. 

“That's enough,” Addy was yelling from somewhere and then she came running over, grabbed George's arm before she could hit Estes again. “You took him down,” she said more quietly. 

George stilled, looked up at Addy with desperate eyes. “It's his fault,” she said. “All of this.” 

“I know.” Addy tugged her arm until George was standing, chest heaving. “Beating him to death isn't going to bring Dante back. We need you here now to keep this from falling apart entirely.” 

Murphy looked past Addy back at the barn. The brawl had been rough but fast. Someone had tied up Ikiryō and everyone had retreated to separate corners to nurse their wounds. 10k had a deadly-looking scythe in his hand and was standing guard over Ikiryō on the ground. Jermaine and Emily, Murphy noted, were still near each other, tucked against the side wall like they'd been keeping out of it. Estes moaned at Murphy's feet, and Murphy kicked him again ungently. 

“Quiet,” Murphy said. 

George stood there looking defeated, her knuckles red and bloody as they hung at her sides. It was unnaturally quiet now; even Ikiryō was finally silent. Doc shifted and groaned. Adze was supporting Caxton and stumbling under the weight. Linda held a piece of ripped fabric to Bill's head and glared at Onza. Finn was picking up broken boards and shaking his head. And at Murphy's feet, Estes whimpered softly. Someone had to speak up or else it would all fall apart here. As much as Murphy missed Warren personally, the group itself needed her now more than ever. She would know what to say. 

But since there was only him, he stepped forward. “We really fucked this up,” he said, not exactly sure how to start. He'd gotten everyone's attention at least; well, besides Estes who continued to just bleed on the ground. They watched him, curious and uncertain both. How did Warren _do_ this all the time? How did she always seem to know the right thing to say?

“I've fucked up a lot of shit in my life,” Murphy continued, moving a little so he was able to take everyone in at once. “Some things I fucked up so bad, I can never fix them,” he glanced briefly at 10k, who just stared back. “But some things are not beyond saving, even if it seems impossible at first.” And here he looked to Doc, who nodded encouragingly. “And I think we're in that second group. But we all have to work at it, right now, or else we should just go home and stop wasting my time.”

George stood next to Murphy, put her hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Murphy is right,” she said, determined. “We can end it all right now, or we can take one more small step and clean up this mess. After that, we can see where the next step leads.” She bent down, picked up a broken board. “I'm gonna clean. Doc, can you see to Estes?” Doc hurried over while George shot Murphy a grateful smile and went to pick up another board. 

“Hear, hear!” Skeezy cheered. 

Emily moved first, grabbed some pieces in the doorway and looked at Jermaine, who followed suit. After that, they all started moving, most of them slowly, some of them, like Linda and Caxton, reluctantly, but except for 10k who stood watch over Ikiryō and Doc who tended to Estes, they all started cleaning up the mess of their fight. Finn directed a trash pile to be started and came over to Murphy. 

“Nicely done,” Finn said quietly. “I thought this was finished.” 

“It nearly was,” Murphy replied. He watched Dev hobble over to Adze and say something, the two men shake hands. Such a small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but seeing it made Murphy's chest fill with warmth and an emotion he was not used to coming by honestly: pride. 

Once the group had cleaned, George gathered them all together in the central open space of the farm. “Good work everyone. Now we take the next step. There's still work to be done, but I'm not going to force anyone to do it. I'm going to start working and I hope you'll work with me.”

“What if we don't?” Caxton asked. 

“Then you don't,” George said simply. “I'm done bribing you all into working together. Do what you will.” 

“What about Ikiryō?” Onza asked. 

“And Estes,” Linda said. “You beat him badly.” 

“I know, and I apologized to him. I've asked Sketchy and Skeezy to escort him and Ikiryō back to Limbo. Murphy I figured you'd want to go with them, too?” 

He shrugged. “Probably better to send Doc and 10k back instead.” It was true, and also he didn't want to go. He wanted to see how this was all going to turn out. He'd invested himself and he needed to see it through. 

George nodded, directed Doc and 10k to head back with the others, and then set off to the threshing area without another word. 

Everyone left looked at Murphy. 

“What do we do?” Emily asked him. 

“We find something to do and do it.” 

In the end it turned out that Adze and Dev made an unstoppable threshing team; that Bill had history as a construction site lead and Jermaine, Emily, and Onza followed his directions easily; and Linda and Caxton both kept to themselves but worked near each other winnowing the chaff from the grains. Addy and Red joined them in winnowing, Finn stuck mostly with the builders, and Murphy went back with George and the other two to finish threshing and not think about Warren. 

As the sun sunk low in the sky, the groups intermingled on their way back to the two vans, and without even noticing their work groups hung together instead of splitting apart when they climbed in. Murphy's whole body ached and he wondered if he could sneak away to the blends to get one of Wesson's luxurious massages. George came up and punched him jovially on the shoulder right where his muscles were most sore and he groaned a little. 

“Ow,” he said, rubbing his arm. 

She smiled. “It worked.” 

“It appears so.”

“It looked bad this morning.” 

“Not as bad as Estes' face is gonna look.” 

She winced. “Yeah. I may have gone overboard on that.” 

“No one deserves it more.” 

“Too bad Warren wasn't here to see it.” 

He'd managed to push Warren out of his head for most of the day and thinking about her now was like George had punched him in the heart instead. “Yeah,” he managed. 

“You know her pretty well. Do you think she'll forgive me for yesterday? Will she come back soon?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “She didn't leave because of you, though.” 

“Then why did she leave?”

Murphy watched the talkers and humans chatting in the vans, rubbing their sore muscles. He heard Bill talking eagerly about dinner and Emily teasing Jermaine while she pulled a splinter out of his hand. The wind picked up and blew cool and swift under his jacket. 

Murphy hadn't understood why Warren had thrown in her lot with George on this, why she'd been willing to go through it to try to bring these two groups together when he'd thought they'd all be better off just chasing them away. He just knew he'd support her while she did, that no matter what road she chose, he was bound to follow her and had been from the start. That he would follow her still, no matter what happened when she returned. 

As the rain started to drop in a light, uneven pattern, as George waited expectantly for an answer, Murphy realized he wanted more than to follow Warren now. This time he wanted to be at her side and help make all of this work. Ten years of shit was enough. Black Rain had been an unexpected bonus, Sun Mei's cure an end they'd all hoped so long for. It was time to stop being afraid, whether it was fear of dying, or turning, or telling the truth. Or being in love. 

_I do love you._ He realized suddenly why she'd really left and he had to grab the door to keep the sudden dizzying remorse from knocking him on his ass. It wasn't what he'd said at all; it was what he hadn't said. 

“It was my fault,” he said. “I didn't give her something she needed. We should get back, those clouds look like they're ready to drop a deluge on us.” He climbed into the van, leaving George and her confusion behind. The drive back to Limbo was noisy enough it drowned out the sound of his own regrets.

**********

Sketchy and Skeezy had prepared food for the groups and together everyone wolfed down every last bite before drifting off to their rooms, exhausted. Doc had sent Estes to sleep off the beating and they'd kept an eye on Ikiryō after they'd untied her, but she'd been almost entirely still and completely silent. 10k reported that she stayed up in the talkers' space the rest of the day and she didn't come down even when the others returned from the farm.

George left with hope in her eyes, saying she'd be by early tomorrow with their last day's activity, and though Addy kicked out a chair for Murphy to join them, Murphy begged off and retreated to his room. He changed his clothes and the sheets, tucked the old ones in a corner for when the blends returned, and sat on the edge of his bed staring at Warren's note and feeling her out there somewhere in the world.

He tucked the note back in the drawer and tried to sleep, though his face and head hurt from where he'd been hit by feet and fists and the back of Estes' head. And he couldn't ignore the memories of last night with Warren; not the sex, but her turned to face him and the way she'd smiled when she said she would stay. Murphy turned over, keeping her ghost at his back. It was raining hard now, he could hear it crackling on the windowsill and dripping inside his room. He'd left the window open so he wouldn't miss the sound of an engine arriving. 

He dozed a little, woke to silence. It was dark outside and the air smelled fresh and cold and empty. Murphy rolled out of bed and slammed the window shut. Water dripped down the wall and pooled on the floor. He put the dirty sheets on top to soak it up and pulled on a silk robe. Sleep had eluded Murphy for so long that being awake in the middle of the night felt natural, but his room was too quiet, his thoughts too loud. He pulled on a comfortable pair of wool-lined slippers and headed downstairs to do a walkthrough of Limbo and maybe see who was awake. 

When Murphy walked into the main room, 10k looked up from where he was idly twirling the hand-scythe on the table. 

“Oh,” Murphy said. “Uh.” 

10k set the scythe down. “What do you want?”

“I was just checking on things.”

“Why aren't you sleeping?”

“Kid, that's a long story.” 

“I'm not a kid.” 

Murphy inclined his head. “I'm just walking around, I won't bother you.” Except. Murphy didn't move, couldn't make his feet take him away from 10k's inscrutable gaze. Regrets piled up one after the other, of things he'd done and things he hadn't said. “Actually,” Murphy said now, clearing his throat. “I think maybe we should talk.”

“I don't want to talk to you.” 10k's antler hand scraped the tabletop. 

“You don't have to. Can I just say one thing? And then I'll leave you alone. For good.” 10k didn't nod, but he didn't say no either, he just said nothing. Murphy took the opening, hoping he could get out what he wanted to say before 10k threw that scythe at him. “I'm sorry for what I did to you. I know sorry doesn't make it okay, I don't expect you to stop hating me. I just,” Murphy sighed. “I hope you stop hating yourself for it, if you do. What happened was my fault and I should have said all this sooner so you could let it go and not just have to shove it aside. I was wrong and I just want you to know I know it, and I feel really shitty about it.”

“Good.” 10k looked down at the table. “I don't forgive you.” 

“I figured.”

“But I probably won't kill you now.” 

Murphy snorted. “I'll take it.” 

10k nodded at him and started twirling the scythe again. He didn't look any different, but there was a clearness to the air that reminded Murphy of after the rain. He hoped the kid could start putting down whatever burden Murphy might have saddled him with, could find some small sliver of peace in the apocalypse. Murphy turned to go and was startled when 10k called his name. 

“Yeah?”

“Has Red said anything to you?”

“No. She's been happy to ignore me and I've been happy to keep out of her way so she doesn't punch me again.” 

“Do you think she's talked to Addy?”

“You'd have to ask Addy that.” 

10k spun the scythe on its sharpened edge, watching it glint in the low lamplight. “I think she's mad.”

“Addy?”

“No, Red.”

“I don't blame her.”

“Not just at you, but at me, too.”

“Well,” Murphy hesitated, not sure what 10k wanted from him. “Did you ask her if she was?”

“I tried but she just got more mad.” 

“Maybe she just needs time to work out her feelings.”

“I guess. I just want to fix it.” 

“I don't really know much about her or your relationship, but from the little I've seen I can tell she cares about you. When she's ready, she'll talk. You just have to listen and be open with her when she does.” He could feel his inner Warren-voice “mm-hmming” in dramatic, sarcastic emphasis. 

10k shook his head. “I don't know why I'm talking to you.”

It wasn't a question, but Murphy answered it anyway. “Because you have nothing to lose by doing so.” 10k looked up, confused. “If I'm telling the truth about feeling bad – and I am, by the way – then you have all the power here.” 

“And if you're not?”

“Then you or Red or Addy will make me pay for it anyway.”

“You'd deserve it.”

“If I was lying, yeah I would.”

“Go away, Murphy. I'm done talking.” 

Considering it was probably the longest non-violent conversation they'd had in eight years, Murphy couldn't blame him. “Good night, 10k,” he said quietly. As he stepped back through the doorway to his room, he imagined he heard 10k's quiet “g'night” drift after him. 

When Murphy turned the corner in the hallway, he nearly ran into Red. 

“What the-” Murphy yelped, before exhaling loudly. The rage that had driven Red to punch him back in Altura lingered in her bright-eyed glare and he took a step back. “Sorry.” 

“Did you mean what you said to Tommy in there?”

He wondered how much she had heard. “I did. Are you mad at him?”

“That's none of your business.” 

“Okay.” Murphy tugged his robe tighter. “But between you and me, keeping that shit to yourself never works.” 

Red pushed past him before hesitating at the dark at the edge of the doorway where 10k couldn't see her. “Do you think it will change anything?” she asked quietly. 

Murphy wasn't sure if she meant the apology or the advice, but aimed for optimism either way. “Yeah, I do. The apocalypse is too long to not hope for things to get better.”

Red peered into the warm light of the main room before looking back at Murphy. She seemed for a moment like she would say more, but she shook her head and continued on her way, Murphy suspected back to the rooms, leaving him to trudge on and try to convince himself what he'd told her was true.


	17. Chapter 17

Warren drove relentlessly through the night she left and all of the next day, stopping only to refill the car from gas cans stored in the trunk. She didn't eat, barely drank. Part of her leaned anxiously towards Cooper's farmhouse and what she would find there; part of her yearned to go back to Limbo. And part of her thought about disappearing into the apocalypse, never to be seen again. 

She drove through sunrise and sunset, through a wall of rain that went on for miles and then abruptly stopped, before finally seeing a star twinkling on the road in front of her. Cooper's farmhouse, a single light downstairs glowing warmly. 

Pulling up, everything looked just like she'd left it. Cow skulls bleached whiter than her hair had been lined the fence and there was wood stacked high and dry in the shed near the house. She got out of the car slowly and walked with soft steps to the front door; still it opened as she neared. 

“Roberta,” Cooper said, her name a question and an answer all at once. 

“Cooper.” He looked good, and ready for sleep in his white henley and loose sweat pants. “Mind if I come in?”

Cooper stepped out of the way. “Not at all.” She walked past him and into the calm serenity of the house. There was music playing softly, of course. He loved his music. The air smelled spicy, some sort of stew she guessed, and the light turned out to be a fire illuminating the room as it slowly died. 

“Just like I remember it,” she murmured. He took her hand in his big and calloused one and pressed his lips to the top. “That, too,” she said. 

“You look good.” 

“You're a good liar.” 

He shook his head. “You look tired, but you still look good to me. Do you need anything? A drink? Some food?” 

Her stomach growled and they both laughed a little. “Guess I do,” she said. He gestured for her to sit on the couch and disappeared into the kitchen. There was the slight clank of pots, Cooper's feet padding around the floor, and soon the spicy smell intensified. Warren warmed her hands near the fire. She was always so cold. 

A few minutes later Cooper brought out a steaming bowl on a wooden tray, with a flower laid artfully next to it. 

“Such service,” Warren said, smiling. 

“Happy to oblige. Eat up, now. We can talk after you're done.” 

Warren ate while Cooper watched her intently and a woman's voice she didn't know serenaded them about lost love. Before everything had fallen apart last time, she'd been nestled on this couch reading a novel and dreaming about a quiet life. She'd been relaxed, and happy, and unknowingly dead. She'd been lonely, too, though she hadn't fully realized it, just a feeling she tried to ignore that things weren't quite right and a dull ache when she thought of her her friends. Maybe it hadn't been just the loneliness. Maybe she'd known there was more that was off even then. When her spoon clinked and scraped the bottom of the bowl Cooper reached for the dish. 

“More?”

“No, thank you.”

“Would you like some sleep?” 

“I'd rather talk.”

“Of course.” Cooper set the bowl down on the coffee table nearby and leaned back comfortably opposite her on the couch. “You came a long way to see me. What did you want to talk about?”

On the drive here Warren had worked hard to not think of anything at all. She hadn't thought about Murphy and his terrified hope; about Cooper's controlled resignation; about what it had felt like when Estes had shot her and her world had changed; and she hadn't thought about what she would say once she finally got here. 

“How have you been? Since...since I left a few months ago. We didn't have a lot of time to talk in Altura.”

He squinted at her. “You drove all this way to ask me how I'm doing?”

“Partly.” 

“I see. Well, I've been doing all right. Harvested all the crops we'd planted and got most of them stored for the winter. I've got plenty to get me through, with some leftover if it's needed. Been spending my days getting the house ready for the cold. Fixing holes, chopping wood, knitting up the sweaters the damned moths keep after.” He folded his arms over his big chest. “What about you? I know you kept yourself busy after you left. How have you been since the election?”

Having sex and realizing she was in love with a half-man, half-zombie, half-whatever who had once in a panic almost nuked the country didn't seem like the best answer even if it was the honest one. “I've been busy still.” 

“Mm. But not too busy to come see me?” 

“I left behind some obligations to do it. But I needed to.” 

Cooper shifted a little, leaning slightly more towards her. “'Need' is a big word, Roberta.”

“It's the right one.” She caught his hand before he could touch her face, cupped it in both of hers in her lap. “I need to know why you didn't tell me right from the beginning.”

He tried to pull his hand away but she kept him there, connected to her, a solid, steady anchor. “I couldn't do that to you,” he finally said. “You were so...human. I didn't want to mess that up.” 

“But I'm not human. I'm whatever I am.” 

“I know that. And look how sad knowing it has made you.” 

Warren bit her bottom lip. “It wasn't yours to decide.” 

“I was trying to help you. I would have told you eventually.” 

“When? When you started getting older and I didn't? When I got hurt in some farming accident and there was no blood?”

“Maybe. I would have found the right time.” 

“Like when you came to Altura?”

“Just so.” The music had stopped but neither of them moved to restart it. “Roberta if I could play out our time together again I would do it so differently. I would have found a time to tell you sooner and I would have been there for you as you figured it all out, and then maybe you never would have wanted to leave.” 

She closed her eyes, imagined Cooper telling her when she first woke up, or even a couple of weeks in when they were planting crops and she'd already trusted him. Would the love she'd never committed to with Cooper have finally taken root? 

Then she imagined Murphy finding her anyway, imagined Cooper being open and inviting him in to their home, Murphy telling her they were all waiting for her at Altura, that he'd come all that way for her. Murphy smiling at her with that same look he'd had in the trunk and asking her to go. And she knew in her heart that even then, if Cooper had done everything differently, she would have gone with Murphy still. Over and over, no matter which way she looked at it, she would choose him. She had chosen him when she was alive; it was being dead that had made her heart wake enough to realize it. When she looked at Cooper again, the dim light of the fire showed her he knew that, too. “I'm sorry,” she said. 

“Hey now. Remote farmhouses aren't for everyone.” Cooper shifted closer and put his arm around her. He was solid and warm, and she relaxed against his chest and listened to the comforting beat of his heart. It sounded just like Murphy's. 

“It's real good to see you, Roberta,” he said into her hair. “But why did you really come here?”

“You left me in Altura.” She felt a few tears slip down her cheeks onto his shirt. “Why didn't you stay?”

“I can't be someone I'm not, make promises I know would just make us both miserable in the end.”

Warren pushed back enough to look at him. He brushed her tears away. “Not even to try and make it work?” she asked. 

“No more than you staying here with me.” 

Cooper had said it gently but it cut like a buzzsaw through the last lies she was telling herself. She leaned back against him, not sad now, just accepting. “Why can't I be happy with this?” 

“It's not what you really want. What are you feeling right now?”

“Sleepy.” She felt his chest rise and fall under her cheek as he laughed softly. But she knew what he was asking. “Like I'm paused and waiting to get going again.” 

“You don't like to be too still, too safe. And I know you want to blame the apocalypse for that, but I bet you've always been one to jump in first, Lieutenant Roberta Warren of the National Guard.” He kissed the top of her head. “You need a partner that will jump with you, into whatever fires you see fit. As much as it kills me, I'm not that man. I'm not sure if I ever was. I can guess who is, though.” 

“How do you know?”

“Hard to miss in your face when you first saw it was him; impossible to miss in the way he talked about you. He'd follow you anywhere.” 

It felt odd to be held so warmly by someone she cared so much for, and yet miss someone else hundreds of miles away more. “He has, for a lot of years.” 

“Do you trust him?” 

Trusting Murphy would have seemed like a fool's game for at least half of their relationship, but she did trust him, had trusted him since the beginning in some ways. She'd never tied him up at night, afraid he would run. She'd never worried he would stab her in the back while she was protecting him. The Murphytown business had been a problem, but after Zona, after Lucy and Black Rainbow and Newmerica, it seemed a distant dream. 

“I do,” she finally said. 

“Then I trust you, even if he seems a little off.” 

Warren smiled a little. Cooper wasn't wrong about that, either. 

“You should stay the night and get some sleep,” Cooper continued. “I left your room untouched, you're welcome to it. You're welcome to my bed, too, if you find you need it.”

Warren sat up, caressed his face. “You're a good man. I hope you find someone who loves music and solitary farmhouses as much as you do.” 

“Even still I'll always be here for you when you need that pause.” He kissed her palm and stood. “Good night, Roberta.” 

“Good night, Cooper.” She watched him walk up the stairs, listened to the creak of the floorboards as he walked to his room and settled in. And as the fire died down to just charred wood glowing red in the darkness, she felt her heart beating, beating, beating against all odds and common sense and she realized the emptiness that had lingered since Estes shot her had been replaced by a nervous, wild anticipation. She'd felt like she'd been frozen and now the edges were melting and laying her nerves and her hopes bare once more, burning down walls she'd had up since Charlie had died. She thought about what Cooper had said, about Addy's reluctance. And through it all she thought about Murphy, about a dark night and a boat so many years ago, about saying goodbye by an old cabin, and saying hello in Zona's hospital. The times she had hated him and the times she'd laughed with him and the times she'd cried for him. What would it mean if she put more than just her life in his hands? Even with the promise of future heartbreak, was it still worth fighting for every scrap of happiness she could have before it hit? What would she do right now, if she trusted that Murphy would fight with her? 

What if Ikiryō was right and discovering she was dead was the best thing that had happened to her? 

Warren left Cooper's house as quietly as she'd come, but she saw his silhouette in the window by the time she got to the car, and knew he watched her as far as he could as she sped back to Limbo.


	18. Chapter 18

“This has been a long few days,” George started the next morning after everyone had gathered. “I appreciate you all coming here. There have been a few concerns brought up that we didn't address very well over the last few days and now that we're listening to each other, we can have a real conversation. So I would like to call the very first meeting of the Committee For An Equal Newmerica together.” 

“Cee-fain?” Murphy said, sounding out the acronym. Doc shushed him. 

“This committee will be responsible for addressing the more difficult social problems that the constitution can't cover. We can make people equal under the law, but how do we enforce it? How do we reach out to the community to listen to their fears and talk to them directly? That's what the committee is for. If you're willing, you all will be founding members. You'll meet formally once a month in Altura, but everything beyond that you have to decide: how many core members there should be, how they're added or removed, how you address citizen concerns. We'll work out how your group and the new congress are going to interact later. Today, I want you to work on the charter and to pick your first committee chair.” 

It was quiet, the talkers and humans looking uncertainly at each other. Neither Ikiryō nor Estes had bothered to join the group again today, remaining alone in their designated spaces. Murphy didn't miss them, but he wondered if in their absence the groups would just stagnate or retreat again. Jermaine spoke up first: “Do you have some paper?”

George smiled, a wide, relieved beam. “Lots. Pens, too.”

She pointed to the boxes 10k, Red, and Addy had unloaded from the truck this morning, and Jermaine opened one up and pulled out a stack of blank printer paper and a box of pens. “It's been an age since I've done any writing,” he said thoughtfully. 

The two groups pushed tables together but mostly stayed split into human and talker sides, except for some overlap between Jermaine, Emily, Dev, and Onza. Jermaine handed out pens while Emily brought the papers over, passed them out to everyone. 

Jermaine, eyes dark and thoughtful as he chewed on the tip of his pen, cleared his throat. “I'll write everything down,” he said. “Starting with the name. Does everyone agree to be called the Committee for an Equal Newmerica?” 

The group looked at each other across the tables. Most of them shrugged, so Jermaine nodded. “Uh, let the record show that we all agreed. Is there a record?” he asked George.

“That's up to you all. We'll say anything that goes into the charter today, there's enough witnesses here that it counts as official record. After today you're going to have to figure that out yourselves.”

“Okay, cool, cool.” Jermaine down the name. “We need a chair next, I guess.” 

“I nominate Jermaine,” Emily said, smiling at him.

“Noted. Thanks, Em. Anyone else?” There was silence, so Jermaine shrugged. “Okay, then show of hands. Who wants me to be the first chair?”

All of the humans and all of the talkers except Caxton raised their hands. 

“Majority wins, I guess?” Jermaine said. The group nodded, more enthusiastically this time, and Jermaine wrote more down. “Okay, Jermaine Washington, chair. Majority rules.” 

“Your last name is Washington?” George asked. 

Jermaine grinned. “Between the two of us, we've got a whole founding father.” 

She laughed, a loud, delighted sound that rolled through the room. “It's perfect.” 

“First order of business,” Jermaine said, straightening in his chair and lifting his voice. “Identifying the top three things to figure out today.” 

They got to work after that, the group growing more and more engaged as the morning wore on. Murphy and the others not part of the Committee all pulled to the other side of the room while Jermaine moderated the discussion with charm and ease. 

“He's gonna be a great chairperson,” Doc said. 

“This might actually work,” Addy said. She looked appreciatively at George. “I thought it was gonna be a total failure.” 

“Thanks,” George said dryly. 

“Yeah I can't believe nobody died,” 10k said. 

“Or even got injured except Estes,” Doc added. 

George looked around at all of them, frowning. “Did _any_ of you believe in this plan?” Murphy looked down at his nails, noticed the others all occupied with other equally interesting things that weren't George. “Unbelievable,” she muttered. 

“Warren really pushed for it,” Red said. Even she seemed slightly less tense and sad today, though she continued to avoid looking at Murphy and she stood nearer Addy than 10k. 

“Where is she?” George asked. “It's been over a day now, why hasn't she come back?”

The others all looked at Murphy. “What?” he said, flushing. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Can you feel her? Is she all right?” Doc asked. 

“Feel her?” George said. 

“Yeah that's how he found her last time when she had crashed the drone. Some mystic bond or something. They've shared fluids, you know.” 

The group looked horrified enough by that that he almost told them they'd actually had sex just to set them off, but instead he said, “Doc means blood. She got some of my blood mixed with hers from a bullet. She's alive but I don't know where she is right now.” Technically true. He didn't know for sure she was at Cooper's. 

“Well, if you say she's alive I guess we'll have to trust that. I hope she makes it back soon.”

So did he. “She'll be back.” 

“How do you know?” George asked. 

“I know her. Come on, play a little cards while we wait for lunch?” 

George, Addy, Doc, and Murphy played for a few hours while Red and 10k took watch outside and Sketchy and Skeezy disappeared to do something Murphy was fairly sure he was going to regret finding out about later. He probably shouldn't have let them roam around Limbo unchecked, but he couldn't watch them constantly. Maybe Hackerville had little cameras he could implant on them. He'd have to check on that option. Eventually Sketchy re-appeared with a plate laden with what looked like bologna sandwiches and Skeezy followed after with bizkits. 

“What is that?” Murphy asked when Sketchy set the tray down. 

“Processed meat sandwiches. No worries about catching the zombie virus from these, it's not mammal meat.” 

“That doesn't make me feel better,” Doc said, his whole face pinching nervously. 

“Do not fret my good man, I have added spices and flavor and cooked everything to a perfect consistency, such that you will be transported back in time to those days of yore, sitting in your school lunchroom with a sack lunch in your lap that your mama packed for you. Back when they had lunch rooms. And schools.” He set the tray down with a flourish. “Bone appetite!” 

“Bon appétit you mean?” George said. 

“That's what I said.” Sketchy bowed low, nearly smacking his forehead into the table and then stood. “Eat up, I've got a whole other plate for the other humans.” 

They stared at the plate, no one willing to take the first bite. “His other food has been good,” Doc said. 

“Yeah, but it was recognizably food. This is pressed meat of some sort.” Addy gingerly picked up a sandwich and looked at it like she'd look at a curious new weapon, likely wondering if it was equally as deadly. 

10k appeared behind Doc and reached past, grabbing a sandwich. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed while they all watched in stunned, fascinated concern. “Pretty good,” he said around another mouthful. He grabbed two more sandwiches and headed back outside. 

Doc grabbed his own and Murphy gaped at him. “What are you doing?”

“Hey the kid likes it.” 

“10k has an iron stomach and the taste of a rock. He could eat actual dirt and think it was good.” 

“Don't be a scaredy-cat, the sandwiches will be fine.” Doc took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. Then he stood up, turned, and ran for the bathrooms. Addy set her sandwich down, uneaten. 

“I'm gonna go stop them from eating these,” George said, hurrying for the other tables. 

The rest of the afternoon passed smoothly after that. Murphy scrounged up enough food that the humans could all eat, and they gave the sandwiches over to 10k, who ended up devouring eight of them. The committee worked until it was time for dinner, and over a delicious meal of salad with grilled chicken – a special delicacy still in the apocalypse – Jermaine read out what they'd captured for the official charter. 

They'd concurred with George's name and once a month formal meeting schedule; had elected Jermaine as chair and Onza as record-keeper when they discovered she had shorthand skills that could keep up with their quick discussions; and had determined they would have eleven people on the committee at a time, the eight of them for now, two others that each group would nominate, and a blend that Murphy would pick.

“What?” Murphy asked, his fork halfway to his mouth. 

“We talked about blends being sort of human and talker both, and it seemed wrong not to have representation on the committee. We can add more, if you want.” 

“Uh, no, one is good for now. I'll get back to you on who it is.” 

“Noted. Onza, can you capture that?” Onza nodded and hurriedly scribbled something. 

“Good work everyone,” George said. 

“We also decided on our first three agenda items for the next meeting. These were tough to agree on, but we thought it was important. First, we'll finalize the charter and get everyone to sign to it and the rules of behavior. Second, we'll figure out how we're going to talk to the community. And finally,” he glanced up, looked around at the committee. “We want to discuss the vaccine and whether it should be mandatory for humans or not. We figure we have some time before we have to finish that one, but we need to start talking about it.” 

George pursed her lips, but she nodded. “Okay. You're the committee, I want you to find out how to handle this for Newmerica. It's kind of a relief that I don't have to do it myself.” 

“United we stand, right?” Jermaine said. 

“Divided we die,” George said. 

“You changed it,” Ikiryō said from the stairwell, startling everyone. 

“I listened to what you said.” George's voice was steady, but she had a hand pressed against her chest. 

Ikiryō came further into the room, glanced coolly at the new committee crowded around the table. “This is your answer to all of our problems, then? Change a few words of a silly slogan and put together a group that has no power?”

George stood, but it was Adze that spoke. “If you're not going to participate, you can just go. Build your talker colony somewhere else.” Next to him, Onza and Emily nodded. 

“You've decided to throw your lives to the humans that despise and fear you.” 

“No,” Emily said firmly. “We've decided to work together, knowing we both have faults and strengths that compliment each other.”

“You've given up your freedom for easy access to bizkits.” 

“Do we look caged up to you?” Onza asked. 

“Not your bodies,” Ikiryō sneered. 

“You don't have to stay,” George said. She walked over, stood directly in front of Ikiryō like she was protecting the committee from her. “You can leave now, and we never have to see each other again.” 

“And if we do?”

George leaned forward, whispered something only Ikiryō could hear. The talker pulled back, her eyes narrow and burning. She turned sharply on her heel and stalked back to the talkers' space. 

“Does she have bizkits?” George asked Skeezy. 

“Yes ma'am, I took her some like you told me.” 

“Good. How's Estes?” she said, looking at Sketchy. 

“Pouting. But he ate some dinner.”

“And the charter is complete?” she asked Jermaine. 

“Until we meet again in a month,” he confirmed. 

George ran her hand through her hair. “Then we're done here. I told Murphy four days, and today is day four. Everyone can go.” But no one seemed to inclined to get up. Jermaine glanced at Emily, and Dev and Onza exchanged uncertain glances. 

Murphy realized that they didn't _want_ to go. They'd fought and argued and worked together and they wanted to celebrate it. And nothing like a little liquor to seal new relationships. 

“Or,” Murphy said from where he was finishing off his salad. “You could all stay one more night and we could have some drinks to end this thing the right way.” 

The humans and talkers both looked relieved. “That's a great idea, Mr. Murphy,” Jermaine said. “Does the committee agree?”

“Aye!” they yelled together. 

“The ayes have it,” Jermaine pronounced with a grin.

**********

Several hours and more cases of liquor than he'd wanted later, Murphy climbed slowly back to his room, through the door to his bedroom, and collapsed on his bed without changing. He'd be mad at himself tomorrow for sleeping in his suit, but for tonight he just wanted to get lost in the welcome oblivion of sleep. The others had mostly gone to bed an hour ago, but Doc, George, Bill, and Adze had wanted to try to last for the sunrise, and Murphy didn't want to let them loose alone on his alcohol. He was going to charge Newmerica for every last drop once this was done and he needed good records.

Finally they'd all stumbled off and Murphy had cleaned up bottles as best he could. He hated seeing Limbo a mess, felt insulted that people would think it just always looked that way. He and the blends worked hard to keep Limbo running smoothly even if no one cared to notice. 

Murphy was diving deep into the blackness of sleep when someone shook him. 

“Mmph.” 

“Murphy wake up,” the person whispered in his ear, urgent. Who the hell- Murphy's thoughts coalesced around a single word. Warren. 

He blinked open his eyes and pushed himself up, groaning. “Warren?” 

Sketchy frowned down at him. “Do I look like Warren to you?” he hissed. 

“Ugh, no.” Murphy buried his head in his hands. “What are you doing here?”

“You hired us to tell you if something was up and we're here to tell you: something is up.” Sketchy tugged at his arm and Murphy batted the other man's hand away. 

“Gimme a second,” he mumbled rubbing his face. He needed some cold water or a drink. Or both.

“We don't really have a lot of time,” Sketchy said, tugging at him again. “Vernon, you got the water?”

“Right here, Sketch,” came Skeezy's voice, and then he dumped it on Murphy's head. 

The cold hit before the wetness, a bright shock zapping from the top of Murphy's hair through his skull and to his spine. Murphy yelped and inhaled sharply, flailing so hard he punched Sketchy in the stomach and knocked something out of Skeezy's hand that shattered against the wall. 

“What the fuck?!” Murphy shouted when he could breathe again, water dripping down the back of his suit and into his eyes. He wiped it away but his hair kept dripping. 

“You were supposed to let him drink it,” Sketchy told Skeezy. 

“Ohhhhhhh,” Skeezy said. 

“If you two don't explain yourself right now, our deal is off,” Murphy hissed.

Sketchy held up his hands. “Woah, hold on there Mr. Grumpypants. You can yell at us later, right now this whole building is in trouble.” 

“What? Why?” Murphy squeezed the water out of his hair. 

“Estes and Ikiryō are up to something. They're meeting in one of those hidden spaces you don't have to use the main room to reach. I saw Estes climb out of bed after he thought we were all passed out, and when I followed him, Ikiryō was already there.” 

“Me too,” Skeezy added. “I followed her down.”

“Scared the daylights out of me, too.”

“You know I've got ninjas in my bloodline, Sketch. It can't be helped.” 

“Would you-” Murphy bit off his own sentence. No time for haranguing them now. “What were they talking about?”

“I don't know. We decided it was better to come get you right away.” 

Murphy nodded. “We didn't leave anyone on watch tonight. They're all mostly too drunk to shoot anyway. How about you two? I saw you drinking.”

“I nursed the same drink all night,” Sketchy said. “I knew you wanted us to keep an eye on things.”

“Yeah and I've got the constitution of bear,” Skeezy said.

Sketchy nodded and laughed. “You should see this guy drink a whole barrel of rotgut. Especially once he turned talker, hoo-eee, we have earned some good money that way.” Murphy glared at him and Sketchy coughed. “Sorry, uh, we're both good for shooting. And armed, too.” They showed him small pistols they had hidden away. 

“Good. Skeezy, you go wake up Doc and the others. Sketchy, you come with me and we'll see what those two are up to.” 

The two men nodded and kissed each other. “See you soon, buddy,” Sketchy said. Skeezy gave him a thumbs up and headed for the door. 

“Buddy? Awfully platonic of you, don't you think?” Murphy peeled off his suit jacket and shivered when the cool air hit his soaked shirt. He took that off, too, and went out to find something new to put on. 

“You're very judgmental. It works for us.” 

Murphy pulled on the first shirt he found, and then holstered his own pistol. “If you say so. Show me where they're meeting.”

They hurried down the stairs, Sketchy in front, so that when he abruptly halted coming out into the main room, Murphy smacked into him. 

“What are you-” But it was easy to see what had stopped him. Estes was at the doorway to the talkers' space, his arm around Skeezy's neck, a gun pointed to his trembling hostage's head. Estes face was purple and black, his eyes narrow slits in the swollen mess. It had to hurt, but he looked feral and furious, and his hand was steady. 

Sketchy had his pistol up, ready to fire, but there was no way to get a clear shot, Murphy could see it already. He slid past Sketchy to stand next to him, folded his arms across his chest. 

“I don't think you got enough sleep, Roman, your eyes look puffy.” 

Estes snarled and pressed the gun harder against Skeezy's head. 

“Murphy,” Sketchy said, low and urgent. “Don't fuck around.”

“What are you doing, Estes?”

“Didn't George tell you?” he said darkly. “We're building a utopia.” 

Murphy stroked his beard. “I don't believe in utopias. Just a chance for people to not kill each other for no good reason.”

“No good reason? This zombie thinks it's a human.” 

“Hey,” Skeezy managed, before Estes arm went tighter around his neck and he choked on his protest. Sketchy tensed, moving a half-step forward before Murphy stilled him with a hand on the arm. 

“Don't,” Murphy said softly. “Let me handle this.” To Estes he said, “you don't really think pencil neck there is a threat, do you?”

“Not like this, but when he misses his daily bizkit he'll turn back into what he truly is.” 

“A scared redneck?” Murphy asked.

Skeezy's eyes, bulging from fear, still managed to look offended. 

“You do like to make jokes, don't you?”

“I find it helps cut the tension.” But Estes did not look any less tense, his gun any less deadly where it was slowly cutting into Skeezy's head. 

The rest of the room looked as Murphy had left it, so whatever Estes was up to, either Skeezy had caught him in the middle of it or it was elsewhere. An obvious absence struck him as well. “Where's your talker buddy Ikiryō?”

“She's not my friend.”

“Co-conspirator, then. I heard you two were whispering sweet nothings to each other.” 

“Like you and Warren?” 

Murphy went still. “What?”

“I'm not an idiot, Murphy. You think I haven't been watching what's been happening here? That I spent all that time stuck in that terribly ventilated basement and never snuck out?” Estes laughed but it had no humor. “No wonder you couldn't outsmart me on your own before. You tried, I'll give you that. But the real brains behind the scenes are Warren's and she's not here to save you or your friend now.” 

Skeezy was getting limp in Estes' arm as Estes slowly cut off his breathing. _Why doesn't Estes just kill him?_ Murphy wondered. There was something off about all of this. Ikiryō missing, Estes taking a hostage instead of a kill. Estes by the talker's entrance instead of the human's. Estes and Ikiryō conspiring to some secret plan, neither of them driven to cooperate to help Newmerica. _Shit_ , Murphy thought, the reality of what was about to happen hitting him square in the face. 

“Where's Ikiryō?” Murphy asked again. 

“I don't know.” 

“Sketchy,” Murphy said calmly. “Go down to the human rooms quickly.” 

“Stop!” Estes said, pointing his gun at them. 

“Go,” Murphy urged. Estes couldn't kill him with a single bullet unless his aim was remarkable, and if he shot Sketchy, Murphy could be on Estes in a minute. 

Estes must have realized all that too, because he put his pistol back against Skeezy's head, drawing blood and an agonized moan from Skeezy with the press of it. “I'll kill him if you take another step.” 

“Murphy,” Sketchy said nervously. “Don't push him.” 

He glanced at Sketchy and the man's face was twisted in such desperate fear that Murphy hesitated. They loved each other a dangerous amount, he realized. The kind that made you weak in the face of the impossible. Or, he thought, looking at Skeezy, who was mouthing something that looked like “it's ok,” maybe it actually made you stronger. 

Murphy knew what he had to do. “Go,” he told Sketchy. 

“No way, I won't let him kill Skeezy.” 

“Ikiryō will murder all the humans if you wait another second. Estes is delaying us, he needs to give her time,” he said quietly. “I won't let anything happen to your fiancé, I promise.” 

Sketchy looked back and forth between Skeezy and Murphy, confused, conflicted. That was when the screaming from the humans' space started, a primal sound that they all recognized after ten long years in the apocalypse: it was a zombie's scream, eager for fresh human brains. 

“Fuck,” Sketchy said. Murphy shoved him towards the door as he pulled his gun and shot Skeezy in the chest. Skeezy oofed and caved almost in two, and Estes' gun went off, the bullet skimming a line through Skeezy's greasy hair before Estes yelped, too. Murphy ran for the pair and shot Estes in the shoulder and Estes' gun dropped to the floor, Skeezy collapsing on the other side. 

Estes moaned in pain, blood spilling from both the shoulder wound and the chest wound where the bullet that had entered Skeezy had gone through and lodged in Estes' body. He reached for his gun but Murphy kicked it away. Estes went still, arm grasping at empty space, and looked up at Murphy with hate in his eyes. 

“I will win eventually,” he rasped through pained breaths. “Everyone will see that I'm right about the talkers.” 

“Maybe,” Murphy said. “But you won't be here to enjoy it.” And as Estes' eyes widened in fear and surprise, Murphy shot him in the head. “That's for Warren,” he said quietly. 

There was a gunshot from downstairs and the screaming stopped as well. 

Silence descended like a cleansing rain until Skeezy took a wheezing breath and abruptly sat up. “You shot me!” he gasped, pressing a hand to his chest and then looking at the blood. “What the hell, Murphy, I thought we were friends?”

Murphy rolled his eyes and helped Skeezy to his feet. “I'm your boss, not your friend. And as your boss, I'm gonna need you to clean that up.” He gestured vaguely at Estes. 

Sketchy came running back up the stairs, hurtled to Skeezy and wrapped him in a huge hug, sending them both crashing back down to the floor. 

“After that, I guess,” Murphy said. 

Doc and the others emerged from their room, blinking and groaning, and the humans and talkers all followed. 

“What the hell?” Doc asked. “How much did we drink?”

Jermaine and Bill, who had carried Ikiryō's body up with them, set it on the floor near Estes'. Caxton rushed over to her, pulling her body tight against his and glaring at them. 

“What did you do?” he shouted. 

“Estes and Ikiryō were working together,” Murphy said. “He was going to kill all of you and she was about to kill every human down there.” 

“It's true,” Linda said, pale and trembling. 

“That doesn't make any sense,” Caxton said. “We were leaving tomorrow.”

George, who had decided to stay the night instead of driving drunkenly back to Altura, stepped forward. “If Estes killed the talkers and Ikiryō went zombie and killed the humans, or most of both, then what you all started here would fall apart. The trust you've built, the commitments you made, they'd be broken in two. The Committee doesn't work without you all.” The groups, taut and angry, glared at each other. 

“You could still let that happen, of course, but seems like it would be a waste of your time here,” Murphy added.

“Jermaine,” George said. “You're the chair. Do you want to disband?”

He took a long breath and shook his head. “No. No, those two brought us here to fail. They wanted war, and look where it got them. I don't want to end up like that.” Many of the others nodded and murmured. “We keep the committee, we figure out how to not let it all turn into this. And if you don't want to be a part of that,” he directed this first to Caxton, and then to the rest. “You should leave now.” 

Caxton's arms went tighter around Ikiryō. “She wouldn't have done this,” he said. “I don't believe you.” 

“You'll all do it eventually. This is why we have to give the vaccine to everyone, even talkers.” There were high spots of color on Linda's cheeks. 

“Humans have had their chance. It's our turn now,” Caxton hissed. 

Murphy didn't like what he was sensing on the air, and he started to step forward but felt George tug on his arm. When he looked down at her, she shook her head sharply, no. “They have to handle this,” she whispered. 

“You're paying for any broken furniture,” he whispered back. 

“There will be no forced vaccination of talkers,” Jermaine said firmly. “I'm not gonna mercy my friends when they're still people.”

“People,” Linda said disdainfully. “People who eat people.”

“Are the luckiest people, in the world,” Murphy murmured quietly, earning another sharp head shake from George. 

Jermaine sighed, but it was Bill who stepped in. “Only when they don't have bizkits,” he said. “It's been four days, Linda, and the only one who tried to eat us was that one. Hell that squirrelly one over there,” he pointed at Skeezy, “offered to massage my feet when we came back last night.”

Skeezy beamed and waved from where he was still sitting on the floor with Sketchy's arm around him, blood dripping down his shirt. 

“Estes let her near us. He could have stopped her but he didn't,” Bill continued. “How many times in this godforsaken apocalypse have you been threatened by humans? We should give the talkers a chance.” 

Linda was tight-lipped and quiet, but the trembling fury and fear had receded, and now she stared at the ground, her hands dancing uncertainly with each other. 

Adze knelt down near Caxton and Ikiryō, put his hand on the other man's shoulder. “I know you owe your life to her, but not your death. She was right, we are special, and we need humans to realize that. But George and the others are right, too: we can't make it on our own. I don't want to go out into that winter just because Ikiryō thought it was worth dying here.”

“I won't be their dog,” Caxton said. “I won't let them hold bizkits over me.”

“They won't,” Murphy said impulsively. “Marion runs the bizkit-making and she works for me. I didn't let Estes cage all of you and let you turn last time, and I won't let it happen in the future, either.” 

Caxton studied him, distrust and despair swirling in his troubled eyes. “You're just one man.”

Murphy smiled. “Yeah but I'm a really spectacular one.” 

He heard Doc smother a laugh, but after a moment Caxton kissed the half-eaten side of Ikiryō's face and set her down. “I don't trust the humans, but I'll trust you,” he said to Murphy. 

“We all will,” Adze added. 

Murphy nodded, dumbstruck. He'd blindly waded in as usual, never expecting to do more than shine a light in their eyes long enough to distract them back to peace. The weight of their expectations fell like a cloak on his shoulders. These people he'd never even met before this week were relying on him, and Doc was shining like a proud brother, and Addy even smiled at him. “Uh, good. You can trust me,” Murphy said. 

“The Committee will talk about all of this the next time we meet,” Jermaine said. “Which I think should actually be in a day or two. Everyone concur?”

The talkers and humans all nodded. 

“Motion approved,” Jermaine said. 

“Good,” George said, exhaling. “I'm glad to hear it.” She scrubbed her hands across her eyes. “I guess we're up now. Let's get this cleaned up, the bodies loaded into my truck. I'll make sure they both get added to the Memorial Wall. Murphy, can we get some water?” 

They worked together, all sixteen of them, and the bodies and mess were cleaned quickly. George wrapped Skeezy up, saying she'd had practice with Dante. And as the sun glimmered on the horizon, they all loaded back into the vehicles that had brought them here until it was just George, Murphy, Doc, and the others left outside in the cool morning air. 

“Thank you for letting us use Limbo,” George said, shaking Murphy's hand. “We couldn't have done this without you. Newmerica owes you.”

“Yeah it does. And I'll send you my full bill.”

She grinned. “Deal.” George nodded at the others. “Thank you all, too. I'll see you around Altura.” She waved and headed for her truck. 

“So you hired Sketchy and Skeezy?” Doc said to Murphy. “You acted so surprised to see them!”

“It was all part of the ruse.”

“How did you know Estes and Ikiryō were up to something?”

“I didn't. I just know better than to trust everything is going to work out according to plan.” 

“Why didn't you tell us you hired them?” Addy asked. 

“Look at those two,” he said. The men in question were peeling back the bandage George had wrapped around Skeezy and sticking their fingers in the bullet hole, laughing riotously. “Would you have thought it could work?”

“No,” Addy said.

“No way,” Doc said.

“Nope,” 10k agreed. 

Sketchy and Skeezy looked up, confused. “Did you say something, Murph?”

Murphy sighed. “I may regret agreeing to let them stay here.” 

Doc patted him on the back. “Looks like you really do have a soft side these days, friend.” Murphy turned his head sharply and Doc smiled. “See you later, Murphy.” He walked towards the van Warren had driven here, now filled with a mix of humans and talkers. 10k nodded at Murphy and followed after him. 

“Hey,” Murphy said to Red, who stood there awkwardly watching 10k walk off. “You believe me about change now?” She darted a wary look at Murphy. “You've gotta talk to him sometime, and it's four hours back to Altura.” Red looked uncertain, but she hurried after 10k and Doc, asking them to wait for her. 

Addy lifted an eyebrow. “Well that was unexpected.” 

“I like to keep everybody on their toes. Makes the apocalypse more interesting.”

“The apocalypse is interesting enough, thanks.” She started to turn for the other van and then hesitated. “Listen, I know _something_ is going on between you and Warren so when she does eventually come back here, don't be an idiot.”

“I'll try,” he said dryly. 

“I'm serious, Murphy. If you hurt her, I'll kill you.” He believed it by the narrow, murderous look in her eye. 

“I won't,” he said sincerely. “Not on purpose at least.” 

“I don't know what she sees in you,” Addy muttered, but she slapped him not-entirely-painfully on the arm and left for the other van. 

Murphy waved to the vans as they drove away, and turned to Sketchy and Skeezy. “Your first job as my new employees is to clean up the mess I'm sure everybody left in the rooms. We'll go get the rest of the blends tomorrow, I just need some sleep today.” 

“Sure thing, Murphy, we'll get right on it,” Sketchy said. “But, uh, first, we were wondering-”

“Where's our room?” Skeezy said. “We wanna use it.”

“See it,” Sketchy said quickly. 

“But I thought you-” 

“Shhh,” Sketchy said. 

“Oh god,” Murphy groaned. “It's the one furthest from mine on the bottom floor.” 

“Great. We're gonna go check that out first, quick as bunnies,” Sketchy said.

Skeezy grinned lasciviously. “We're gonna do somethin' like bunnies.” 

“Just go, please,” Murphy begged them, “and stop talking about it.” 

The two men ran off giggling. Murphy shook his head, realizing as the quiet settled that he envied them their giddy-in-love fearlessness. If Warren came back...

 _When_ , he thought, allowing himself to be hopeful just this once, though it would hurt like hell if he was wrong. When she did, Murphy vowed to be as brave as the two biggest cowards he knew. He headed inside, the sun warming his back and promising a beautiful day.


	19. Chapter 19

When Warren pulled up to Limbo later that morning, it was quiet and the vans were gone. She'd been away two and a half days, but she was still surprised walking into the main room of Limbo to find it empty and clean. Apparently they'd finished the conference without her. She hoped it had gone well, wondered if anything good had come of it at all. 

She heard footsteps and turned to see Murphy coming out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his jeans. He was wearing a Limbo t-shirt and was barefoot, unkempt, and surprised. “You came back,” he said.

“I did.” She swallowed hard, suddenly drowning in the rush of seeing him. All she had thought about on the drive back was seeing Murphy again, what she would say and do. And now it left her, nerves and anxiety twisting her up. “What happened while I was gone? Did it go all right?” 

“It did in fact end in blood, but we took care of it. It turned out better than any of us expected, I think. I can fill you in on everything later. You won't have to worry about Ikiryō or Estes anymore at least. What about you?” He dropped his gaze. “You went to see Cooper, I assume.” 

Warren licked her lips. “Yes. And before you say anything else, I just need you to answer one question.” He looked up and nodded, slowly, worry dancing in his multicolored eyes. “If I needed to go,” she said, “would you come with me? Would you leave all this behind?”

“You mean Limbo, my perfect zompocalypse oasis? My suits, my blends, the alcohol and adoration?” It was too much, she thought. It was asking too much. But she nodded in assent. Murphy shrugged, as if it all meant nothing to him. “Don't I always?” 

Warren smiled, felt it crack across her face like a sunrise, the happiness behind it flaring through her, igniting her heart so it burned bright and clean on its own, not needing any outside source. “That's what I love about you,” she said, and Murphy smiled, too, the same spearing light that crashed through walls and left behind a riotous, joyful noise to fill the emptiness. 

“You could raise your expectations of me a little after all this time. You can rely on me.” His voice was quiet, and serious, and hopeful. 

“I do,” she said. “I need you in my life, Murphy.” 

His face went soft and struck, and he swallowed hard. “Roberta, I-” he cut himself off and breathed deeply, and she moved to meet him in the middle. 

“I know,” she said, touching his face gently. “You don't have to say it.” 

“No, I do.” He covered her hand with his, his warmth matching hers. In the quiet, even Limbo seemed to be holding its breath. “You should hear it, because it's been true forever. I love you, Warren. I've tried not to, and I've tried to ignore it, and none of it works. If I'm gonna feel all of this anyway, I'd be an idiot not to tell you. I should have told you the other night. Maybe you would have left anyway, but at least you would have known.”

Warren's heart pounded, elated and nervous as the words etched across her heart. This was gonna knock her out if it all went wrong, and the apocalypse always went wrong eventually. But she couldn't think of that, couldn't have stopped it from happening anyway when it felt like they'd been running towards this for so long. She felt like she was floating, like she levitated enough to kiss him. The kiss was familiar and new all at once, flush with the feelings she no longer held back, surging against his own rushing to meet her. She was light-headed but her body felt heavy with the need to be closer. Warren gripped Murphy's hair, realized he'd lifted her in his arms when they pulled her tighter against his body. “I'm glad you came back,” he said, smiling against her lips. 

“I may have to leave more often if you're gonna welcome me like this,” she said, grinning at him. 

“Just try not to be gone too long.” He set her down gently and didn't let her go. But she didn't feel trapped, she felt wanted. She trusted that Murphy wouldn't stop her from leaving, would be waiting for her to return, would go with her when she needed him. He'd proven he would, over and over again. 

Still, she had to make it clear. “I can't stay here permanently, that hasn't changed. I need space, our friends.”

“I never expected you to stay. I don't have to be in Limbo all the time and if you need to go on your own, I'll save a room for you. Or you can always stay in mine.” 

“What about the blends?” 

Murphy snorted. “The blends will be fine; they've known longer than I've been willing to admit it.” Warren thought of Murphytown, of 'Murphy loves you.' They'd known before either of them. “They miss you when you're gone too long, you know.” 

Warren chuckled. “They do, huh? What about you?” 

“I miss you when you're gone at all.” 

Life, the sharp joy and pain of it, flowed through her and she smiled so hard and bright and full of hope that it hurt, saw herself reflected in Murphy's own exhilarated face. She wanted all of it: the absurdly hot sex, the teasing jokes, the arms to welcome her home. But not back to Limbo, back to Murphy, wherever he was. “Do you think we'll regret this?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I'm a cockroach, but so are you now.”

“A cockroach?” Warren pulled back. “How romantic.”

“What do you have against insects?” Warren laughed, but his answering smile turned serious. “I don't care that you had to die first to be here. I should have told you that, too.”

“Dying made me realize all of it.”

Murphy nodded. “Just don't do it again.”

“I'll do my best. You, too. I can't-” her voice abandoned her, unable to even say the words. They were cockroaches, she reminded herself. And even if they weren't, she couldn't cut herself off from happiness forever. She could have stayed with Cooper, safe and protected, but she wanted to _live_.

Murphy bent down and kissed her again, a deep, sweet promise. 

“Woo-hoo!” Skeezy howled excitedly from behind them. “Dual wedding!”

Warren laid her forehead against Murphy's chest and laughed. 

Later that evening, after they'd assured Skeezy there would definitely be no dual wedding and had escaped to Murphy's room for celebratory sex, a blissfully warm shower, and then shower sex, Warren drifted off to sleep in Murphy's bed, curled against his side while he rubbed his hand soothingly up and down her arm and told her about what had happened while she'd been gone. Warren slept deeply, contentedly, with none of the desperate and terrifying dreams or the haunting emptiness that she'd had since she'd discovered she was dead. 

And when she woke in the morning, Murphy was still by her side.


End file.
